Shuko Muto

Yakuzen chef / head of Shinsen Yakuzen
A yakuzen chef who joins Japanese cooking with Chinese medicine
| Qualification | Kokusai Chuishi (international Chinese medicine practitioner), Kokusai Yakuzenshi (international yakuzen practitioner), licensed cook |
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| School attended | Honzou Yakuzen Institute |
| Specialty | Recipe development, product development, lectures and teaching |
She spent her twenties as a systems engineer and, through ill health of body and mind in a punishing job, came to feel how much food matters. At thirty she set out to become a chef, honing her craft on the job while attending evening classes at culinary school. After having a child, facing her child's development and fussy eating, she felt again that the body is built from what you eat, and from around the time her child started primary school she studied yakuzen and earned the Kokusai Yakuzenshi and Kokusai Chuishi qualifications. Drawing on her time teaching at a large cookery school and her present work as a chef, she sells the yakuzen tea brand adjusTea, which joins adjust with tea, runs blending classes and a Shinsen Yakuzen cookery school that joins Japanese cooking with the Chinese medicine idea of the five spirits, and develops recipes, going on offering, through cooking and Chinese medicine, ways to make daily life a little richer.
| 1 Recipe and product development for yakuzen teas and dishes | Joining her skill as a chef with the theory of Chinese medicine, she develops recipes and products for yakuzen teas and dishes. In her own brand adjusTea she blends yakuzen teas to suit the season and the constitution. Her strength is designing so that what an ingredient does sits alongside a taste and a drinkability, or eatability, you want to come back to every day. She shapes products and menus right down to steps you can follow at home. |
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| 2 Cookery classes, blending classes and seminars | She runs cookery classes and yakuzen tea blending classes in person, and has taught at a large cookery school. Her strength is not leaving things as difficult theory but translating them into forms you can use at that day's table. Drawing on the organisation built up as a chef and the ability to convey built up as a teacher, she builds seminars and workshops that leave people feeling they could make it themselves. |
| 3 Supervision and proposals in Shinsen Yakuzen, Japanese cooking crossed with Chinese medicine | Working from her own Shinsen Yakuzen, which joins the Japanese cooking she is strongest in with the Chinese medicine idea of the five spirits, she supervises menus and proposes dishes. Drawing on the delicacy of Japanese ingredients and methods, she builds dishes that stay alongside the season and how the body is. With Japanese cooking as her axis, she has also built up learning in Western technique and restaurant desserts, and can draw on both. |
She founded the yakuzen tea brand adjusTea, joining adjust with tea, and runs blending classes and the Shinsen Yakuzen cookery school. She has taught at a large cookery school. As a Kokusai Yakuzenshi, Kokusai Chuishi, licensed cook and certified instructor of the Honzou Yakuzen Institute, she conveys yakuzen as both chef and teacher.
