title: Butter by: Yuzuki, Asako published: 2024-02-29 read: 2024-04-02 preview

I cannot help but love surreal Japanese novels. Another beautiful example in this one, which is a combination of food pornography and murder mystery. Food: indeed, butter. The main protagonist of the story, Rika, is a journalist who lives for her work. She has a friend-with-benefits, he thinks they have a relationship. She ignores food, until she starts getting interested in the story of a serial killer; a woman who killed various of her husbands, after lavishly cooking for them:

Bagna cauda with a plentiful variety of steamed winter vegetables and a rich anchovy sauce, thinly cut slices of warmed salt pork, a tofu and leek gratin, rice cooked in an earthenware pot with vegetables and chopped oysters, and miso soup - the dishes had a vitality to them which came from using only the freshest ingredients, and though the seasoning was unobtrusive, all the flavours had pleasing depth. Weren’t oysters supposed to be good for fertility? Rika thought as she brought to her lips a mouthful of rice enriched with soy sauce, whose smell put her in mind of the sea, shooting a glance over at her friend. She realised that she had more of an appetite than she could remember having in a long time, and that if this was largely owing to how delicious the food was, it was also in part to do with the way Ryösuke ate, as if in a state of ecstasy.

Her best friend, Reiko, is an excellent cook and unhappy in her marriage, she thinks.

Riko manages to get exclusive interviews with the convicted serial killer, Kajii, to tell her stories. And she does so by following her path, with respect to her lavish food experiments. Focussing, mostly, around butter.

A sliver of butter perched atop a mound of steaming rice garnished with a single drop of soy sauce was a taste that had quickly become an addiction for Rika. She’d used lashings of the same butter on her morning toast, too, and as a result the hundred grams of Échiré that she’d bought in the Marunouchi store had vanished in just a few days. In the midst of the end-of-year rush at work, where she was having to shave off hours of sleep, she had no time to buy more. When her hunger became too much to bear, she decided to sate it with whatever was close at hand - such had been her rationale for buying the Calpis. As it happened, though, this alternative brand brought together a creamy richness reminiscent of condensed milk, with a clean, fresh aftertaste. It was a different species of deliciousness to Échiré, whose umami-rich flavour lingered on and on eternally, and Rika took to it immediately.

Isn’t it beautiful? It immediately brought me to question my own choice in butter, which I use a lot but buy on ecological and ethical grounds, mostly. I’m sure my butter is good but… the brands mentioned here, I cannot comprehend the difference. Yet.

Well, the story develops, with some details here and there which are sometimes too fantastic – a friend’s unused apartment which is then used by Rika and other involved people to restore their lives?; Reiko living with a possible accomplice of Kajii for a few days? – but all that does not reduce the joy in this cheerful and fearful ride of food, murder, a bit of eroticism and some love, perhaps.

Nice.