Accepted to be apprentices at Mr. Kishimoto's famous International Culinary Institute, Japanese teenagers Akio, Masami, Keiko, Yuko, Nobuko, and their American friend Koji will soon leave Shimura Junior High School to compete with each other for a permanent place as a renowned Kishimoto Institute cook. As with much that happens at the Kishimoto Institute, the event will be nationally televised, part of a familiar company advertising strategy that makes Kishimoto the most famous of culinary institutes in Japan. So far complete unknowns, the success or failure of the friends will soon be a national headline. Well-versed in the world of cookery competitions and TV cooking shows, having worked together throughout high school offering cooking demonstrations in grocery stores for the ever colorful Kishimoto Food Company, "The Hot Pots," as they are known at school, are full of excitement and expectation. However, what comes next is not the stuff of high school. What comes next is not only the realization of their ambitions but also surprising revelations. Cookery, they soon begin to realize, is more than tastes, aromas and colors, the possibilities in ingredients and the mastering of techniques. The world of cookery has both a bright side and a darker one. Cookery is bold adventures and hidden truths. It is invention and discovery but also the secrets of adulthood, where a new kind of uncertainty prevails and a new kind of treachery threatens. The Hot Pots soon will learn far more than they expected. The Japanese Cook is a story of innocence and aspiration, friendship, commitment, curiosity, love, and cookery!
