From Haku’s rice ball to cursed chicken and charred newt cookies, this book will show you how to make Spirited Away’s fantastic fantasy fare.

Mouthwateringly detailed depictions of food have become as much a symbol of Studio Ghibli anime as fanciful flight sequences and plucky heroines. Food takes on the most narrative and thematic significance, though, in Spirited Away, where different dishes are used to symbolize greed, compassion, or sacrifice, serving as edible milestones on the characters’ arcs.

So it was a reasonable expectation that the official Ghibli anime cookbook series would eventually get around to Spirited Away, and now it finally has.

Like the other books in the line, Ghibli’s Table: Spirited Away is a collection of recipes that recreate food seen within the Hayao Miyazaki-directed classic, and also mix in a few new creations inspired by the setting and characters. Publisher Shufu no Tomo says that the 64-page volume contains instructions for how to make the onigiri rice ball Haku gives to Chihiro, the tempura rice ball devoured by the spider-like Kamaji, a non-bitter version of the bitter dumpling Chihiro receives as a sign of thanks from the river god, charred newt-shaped cookies, and “the chicken eaten by Chihiro’s mother.”

▼ You can spot Zeniba’s cake on the book’s cover too, so it feels like a safe bet that there’ll be a recipe for it too.

Like all of the Ghibli cookbooks, the Spirited Away volume is meant to be simple enough for adults or kids to follow along with. The ingredients used are all things that can be found in a typical Japanese grocery store, so even if you’re outside of Japan, odds are you’ll be able to source what you need as long as you’ve got an Asian market nearby or an online ingredient source. The series also tends to have detailed photos of the cooking process, and the descriptions, though in Japanese, are written to be easy for kids and inexperienced home chefs to understand, so they shouldn’t be too hard to decipher for non-natives with some basic Japanese language proficiency.

▼ For example, here’s a page from Shufu no Tomo’s Castle in the Sky cookbook, showing photos for the recipe steps and including phonetic readings for the kanji characters.

Ghibli’s Table: Spirited Away is priced at 1,760 yen (US$12) and goes on sale July 31, but can be preordered now through Amazon Japan here.

Source: Shufu no Tomo via Ghibli no Sekai
Top image: Studio Ghibli
Insert images: Amazon Japan, Studio Ghibli, PR Times
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