Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Rice, orrice-substitute, suchasamixture ofwheat andrice,wascookedinthesmallest
amount of water possible to ensure that all free liquid was evaporated or absorbed just as
cooking was completed. It was preferred that the grains should stick together in a fairly
glutinous mass, easily eaten with chopsticks. The rice was brought from the kitchen in a
covered container, often of lacquer, but also possibly of wood, from which it was ladled
into each person's rice-bowl, usually of china. The method of eating was rather of push-
ing it into the mouth than of picking it up with chopsticks. It could be eaten completely by
itself—certainly no salt or sugar added—or with small sheets of dried seaweed, that were
manipulated with the chopsticks to roll some rice in them, the whole being transferred to
the mouth, or again with pickled giant radish. This was a root at least one foot long, which
could be served in many ways, either raw and chopped and shredded, or, in this case, cut
into hunks and steeped in water and rice-bran, in which it turned bright yellow; a superior
product was made with cucumbers and
sake
residues.
Itwasnormaltoeatatleastthreepiledbowlsofrice,andgoodmannerstoleaveagrain
ortwointhebowlwhenpassingitformore.Oftenteawouldbedrunkfromthebowlatthe
end of the meal to gather up what was left of the rice. This tea was made from the green,
unfermented leaf. It was made usually in earthenware pots (
76
)
,
but with little of the ritual
of tea making in England. Tea at mealtimes had nothing to do with tea at the tea ceremony,
where a powdered product was used. With ordinary tea it was quite normal practice to add
water again and again to the pot until there was virtually no color or taste left.
Afterdrinkingtea,themealwasoverexceptforaquickuseofthetoothpick,andabow
and thanks to the provider, be this some deity or the host or the head of the house. When
work was to be done, no lingering was encouraged: a quick succession of flicks with chop-
sticks and it was back to work again.
The range of food that was available for more elaborate meals was considerable. Some
thingsthat areeaten nowadays were notincluded. Meat wasararity intowns,andbeefand
horseflesh entirely absent. In fact, in the whole of Japan this was so (for various reasons,
partly religious and partly to keep up the number of animals needed for military and agri-
cultural purposes), except that a few
daimyō
families that had formerly been Christian are
said to have secretly persisted in beef-eating, while in the Hikone domain, just to the east
of Lake Biwa, a local preparation consisting of the tenderest part of the cow, preserved in
miso,
with the hide and hair left on, was used as a fortifier and is said to have been presen-
ted to the Shogun and some of his senior staff. Other permitted meats, such as that of deer,
boar, and birds, were sold in Edo, sometimes under assumed names, such as “mountain
whale”and“medicine,”foritwasappreciatedthattheproteinscantydietoftheinhabitants
could be supplemented by nourishing stews and similar dishes, to the benefit of the health
of their consumers, especially in winter. Even so, meat-eaters were few.
