Shizuo Tsuji

Shizuo Tsuji (Japanese: 辻 静雄, romanized: Tsuji Shizuo; 13 February 1933 – 2 March 1993) was a Japanese culinary educator and writer. He founded the Tsuji Culinary Institute (辻調理師専門学校) in Osaka, which became the largest institution for training professional chefs in Japan, and wrote Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art (1980), an English-language book on traditional Japanese cuisine. He invited French chefs to teach in Japan from 1972 onward; these contacts contributed to the development of nouvelle cuisine. Early life and education Tsuji was born in the Hongō district of Tokyo on 13 February 1933, the son of a baker. He graduated in French literature from Waseda University in Tokyo in 1957 and joined the Osaka office of the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper as a reporter. While working as a journalist he began studying the history of French cuisine, and, realising that he knew little about the cuisine of his own country, took up the study of Japanese cooking as well.