Butter by Asako Yuzuki is an English translation of the Japanese bestseller. It provides a fascinating insight into Japanese culture, friendships, gender relations, societal norms about body type and beauty, and our relationships with food. 

I learned from my late father that women should show generosity towards everyone. But there are two things that I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and margarine.

One of the central characters is based on the real life Konkatsu Killer, a con woman and gourmet cook called Kanae Kijimo who was convicted of poisoning three of her lovers. But the story is much more about food than murder.

The whipped butter had already started melting across the waffles’ latticed brown surface, creating a golden trickling waterfall that pooled in their hollows. Rika bit into the dough, savoring how juicy and moist it had become with all the butter it had absorbed, with a pleasant saltiness.

Tokyo journalist Rita Machinda is determined to land an exclusive interview with Manako Kijii, a blogger and exceptional cook who is in jail for murdering a number of her lovers. Rita writes to Manako and asks for her beef stew recipe to try and get an interview with the media shy murdress. 

Every night, those women would clean out the toxins that had built up in their partners’ bodies and souls over the course of the day–toxins that, if left untouched for too long, would eat a person away.

Rita rarely cooks but her correspondence and visits to Manako in jail soon become a masterclass in food, and Rita is gradually transformed. When I read the scene on her first cooking instruction from Manako, I had to try it  – steamed rice topped with very good quality butter and soy sauce. It was surprisingly tasty. But you cannot go wrong with lashings of Butter.