Contemporary Japan overlays two heritages. On one side, traditional washoku with its ichijū-sansai structure: a bowl of rice, a soup (often miso), and three small sides, all served together without an appetizer-main-dessert order. On the other, yōshoku, those Western dishes (spaghetti, sandwiches, filter coffee) adopted since the Meiji era and then Japanized, becoming the food of the modern bachelor, the hurried city dweller, the writer who cooks alone. Murakami lives exactly at this hinge: a morning of rice and miso, a midday of pasta while listening to a jazz record, a black coffee as served in kissaten.

Dashi (kombu seaweed and dried bonito broth), fermented miso, soy sauce, and umeboshi: this umami-fermented foundation runs through all everyday Japanese cooking. In Murakami's case, it comes with another signature, an immaterial one: doing one very simple thing well, alone, with attention — boiling pasta, grinding coffee — like a small, almost athletic discipline.