Shizuo Tsuji

About Shizuo Tsuji (1933 - 1993) Founder of the Tsuji CulinaryInstitute Group Mr Shizuo Tsuji was born in Tokyo in 1933. After graduating in French Literature from Waseda University, he worked for the Osaka Yomiuri newspaper. In 1960 he founded The Tsuji Culinary Institute in Abeno, Osaka, acting as the parent body for the Tsuji CulinaryInstitute Group, educational facilities teaching professional culinary, pâtisserie, and bakery skills. In 1972 he invited M. Paul Bocuse, a famous inspirational French chef of that period, to hold a course on French cuisine, as the first of many famous chefs to be so invited. Culinary industry significantly benefited from his contribution and helped to develop and understand the French culinary arts in Japan. He also conducted research on nineteenth century French cooking, and was one of the world’s foremost collectors of older French books on the subject, and was also himself the author of many books, notably (English translations of Japanese titles): Etude Historique de la Cuisine Francaise, A World History of Taste, Notes on French Cooking, Holiday for Chefs, and Kiccho – a Culinary Tradition, as well as translating many foreign books on the subject into Japanese. Having studied Japanese cuisine extensively since 1970, in 1980 he published the book in English “Japanese Cooking – a Simple Art ” which has come to be a primary English-language reference work on Japanese cuisine, as well as acting as a bridge between the Japanese and Western culinary traditions. In 1972 he was awarded the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF) by the French Government, and in 1981 was made a chevalier of Ordre des Palmes academiques , and Ordre du Merite agricole in 1989