Danica Davidson
November 22, 2016 
Does adorably designed food in manga and anime make you go squee? Do you need something to eat while you’re pounding the pavement playing Pokémon Go? Do you enjoy whipping up your own food? Then The Pokémon Cookbook is probably for you.
Written by nutritionist Maki Kudo, The Pokémon Cookbook is 77 pages of adorable and themed foods. Some of the things it shows you how to make are the Pikachu Happy Face Cake (as seen on the cover), Regigigas Rice (with peppers, broccoli and shimeji mushrooms used for design) and Giratina Italian Pizza (using eggplants and peppers for the design). A lot of the dishes have a clear Japanese cuisine influence (which of course makes sense), and that is how we have dishes like Pikachu Cold Ramen Noodles, Poké Ball Sushi Roll and Munchlax Box Lunch. Not all the dishes are specifically Japanese, though, which is how we also get Pikachu Creamed Corn, the aforementioned pizza and Diglett Potato Field, where Diglett get made out of hot dogs.
There are twenty-four different meal recipes, and then thirteen dessert recipes. The desserts look like something you’d get at a specialty café in Harajuku, with options like Slowpoke Strawberry Mochi Balls, Combee Banana Trifle, and Chimchar Apple Cake. The recipes in the book are all brightly colored and eye popping.
Because Pokémon has many young fans, the book also has some tips for them, like teaching them about the importance of being careful cutting and why they’d want to wear an apron. In this way, it seems like a good book that a parent and child can work on together. Adult readers can skip over those pages and get right to the recipes.
The Pokémon Cookbook comes out December 6, just in time for the holidays and all the baking that tends to occur during this season. It’s hard to look at all the pictures in this book and not get hungry.
Writer: Maki Kudo
Publisher: VIZ Media
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