Sake in Japanese Food Culture the Edo Culture of Eating and Drinking Out
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Vol. 29 No. 3 October 2015 Kikkoman’s quarterly intercultural forum for the exchange of ideas on food THE JAPANESE TABLE 4 CLOSE-UP JAPAN: Matcha Green Tea Confectionery — Sake in Japanese 5 JAPANESE STYLE: Food Culture Umeboshi Pickled Japanese Apricots TASTY TRAVEL: The Edo Culture of Eating and Tochigi Shimotsukare Drinking Out — 6 MORE ABOUT JAPANESE COOKING: by Noritake Kanzaki Rice with Edamame, Abura-age & Kombu Beef Roll-Ups with Nagaimo and Umeboshi We continue our series on sake with this third installment, — which takes a look at the customs of eating and drinking out 8 during Japan’s Edo period of the early seventeenth through KIKKOMAN TODAY: mid-nineteenth centuries, with a focus on the capital city of International Exchange of Food Culture Edo, known today as Tokyo. in Milan Sake in Japanese Food Culture The Edo Culture of Eating and Drinking Out From left: Chikuwa grilled tube-shaped fi sh cake, and tsukudani simmered asari clams with soy sauce, mirin and other seasonings. Kudari-sake to Edo Yatai Society fit into the space.” The men of old Edo were big Drinking out in Edo began It was in shops such as drinkers. During the Edo era with stand-up drinking stalls these that warm sake (kanzake) (1603-1867), the ratio of men to called yatai. These stalls served became popular, heated in a women in the city was as high accompanying dishes such as copper container called a chirori as three or four to one, and so soba noodles, and dengaku grilled and served in small ceramic cups this city of some one million vegetables and tofu topped with called guinomi. Accompanying people was rather skewed by miso. Another dish was nishime foods included nishime and its disproportionate number of vegetables simmered in soy sauce, pre-prepared dishes of fish and single men. At the same time, the mirin and other seasonings. shellfish, including kamaboko country was experiencing greater Engyo Mitamura (1870–1952), steamed fish cake, and tsukudani social and economic stability. In a pioneering researcher of Edo small fish or shellfish simmered this milieu, shops serving food popular culture, wrote that, prior in soy sauce and other seasonings. and drink proliferated rapidly in to the eighteenth century, there Edo, as social customs of eating were no casual food-and-drink Restaurant and Honzen Dining Culture and drinking out flourished. pubs such as those we now call According to Mitamura, proper Responding to demand in izakaya. By the early part of that restaurants began to appear by Edo, the sake-brewing coastal century, however, niuri-sakaya— the mid-eighteenth century. region of Nada, located in the literally, sake and simmered-dish Initially, food at such eateries Kobe-Nishinomiya area of shops—had emerged, recognizable was served on large platters. Hyogo Prefecture, became the by their façades of shoji paper Utagawa Hiroshige’s woodblock mass-production center for panels. By the latter part of the print Edo Komei Kaitei Zukushi kudari-sake—sake destined eighteenth century, these shops depicts famous early nineteenth- for Edo. Sake brewers in the were doing brisk business, and century restaurants, and reveals region gathered in Nada and set they are now considered the up breweries along the coast, origin of today’s izakaya. In his where sake could be shipped 1977 story Yami no Haguruma out directly to Edo on cargo (“Gears of darkness”), novelist ships called tarukaisen. More Shuhei Fujisawa, who wrote on than 800,000 barrels of sake Edo-era themes, describes a niuri- were shipped annually to Edo, sakaya: “The shop was not very each holding 72 liters. It is large. It surrounded a kitchen estimated that roughly fifty that projected into the shop, with percent of Edo’s population were a dirt floor extending into the sake drinkers, which works out back in an L-shape with a counter to an estimated 102 liters of sake and stools clustered around it. per person per year. Only about fifteen people could A sake-drinking competition in 1815, as depicted in the book 2 People enjoy food and drink at a niuri-sakaya shop in Edo during the early nineteenth century. Detail from the drawing Kinsei Shokunin Zukushi Ekotoba, by Keisai Kuwagata. Courtesy of Tokyo National Museum how such dishes were served in became the custom for people pickles were served, followed by Edo teahouses. We can see live to pour out sake for each other, a full helping of rice to finish off sashimi displayed on colorful and some even enjoyed competing the meal. sawachi porcelain platters; with each other to see how much In old Edo, any opportunity simmered vegetables in great sake they could drink. Accompanying to enjoy sake was welcome. The bowls; and large wooden lacquer dishes of appetizers to be enjoyed city was a gathering place for boxes, in which kamaboko and with the sake were also developed. people from different provinces tamago-yaki rolled-egg might The mid-eighteenth century throughout the country, and for be served, then distributed into also saw the spread of the honzen the men who spoke different small individual dishes. style of dining, especially for dialects and followed different Around the same time, formal or ceremonial occasions. customs, sake helped bridge the variety of food seasonings These meals consisted of ichiju the gaps and make social increased: cookbooks from san-sai (one soup and three dishes, connections. Today, traditional that time describe the use of served with rice and pickles). customs of enjoying sake while katsuodashi dried bonito dashi Such a meal was modest, rather viewing cherry blossoms or stock, soy sauce and mirin. than filling: the rice in a honzen fireworks, or in izakaya and Sashimi, particularly that of serving was small, and the soup restaurants, endure throughout various whitefish, was often was clear o-sumashi, intended Japan, where they continue to dipped in irizake sauce made of to stimulate the palate so as to enhance communication. boiled katsuobushi, sake, salt better appreciate the flavor of the Translated by Lynne E. Riggs and umeboshi pickled Japanese sake. Essentially, a honzen meal apricot. Sake was served in was a kind of “sake and appetizers cover ceramic tokkuri flasks and drunk course.” After plenty of sake had Edo Komei Kaitei Zukushi Sanya Yaozen by Utagawa Hiroshige. The woodblock print depicts an exclusive from small sakazuki cups; it made the rounds, miso soup and restaurant where intellectuals gathered in the nineteenth century. Courtesy of Suntory Museum of Art Author’s profile Noritake Kanzaki was born in 1944. He is a specialist in Japanese folklore and president of the Institute for the Culture of Travel. He serves on the Council for Cultural Affairs of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and as guest professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture. He is chief priest at the Usa Hachiman Shrine in Okayama Prefecture. His many published works include Sake no Nihon bunka: Shitte okitai o-sake no hanashi (“Sake in Japanese culture: convenient stories to know about sake”); Shikitari no Nihon bunka (“Manners and customs of Japanese culture”); and Edo no tabi Gosuichoki, which records that one man drank 16.38 liters and a woman consumed 4.5 liters. Courtesy of Adachi Museum bunka (“The culture of travel in the Edo period”). FOOD FORUM October 2015 3 CLOSE-UP JAPAN Traditions and trends in Japanese food culture Various matcha confections, clockwise from left: Gelatin, roll-cake, castella cake, chocolates, Matcha Green Tea Confectionery sembei rice crackers. Matcha green tea is fi nding a place for the usual process with regular tea itself in health-conscious diets around leaves; they are ground in a stone the world. Unlike regular tea leaves Matcha is mill into powder form. This labor- prepared by brewing in hot water, distinctively intensive process was established in matcha green tea is made of ground, the sixteenth century, when the tea powdered leaves whose nutrients refreshing. ceremony matured. remain intact. Matcha is characterized In Japan in the mid-1990s, by a deep green color and gentle matcha ice cream triggered the aroma; it is distinctively refreshing popularity of confections prepared with a slightly bitter and rich fl avor. only at the traditional Japanese tea with matcha; these were followed Outside Japan, matcha is often used ceremony. To make matcha, tea leaf by countless variations of new in drinks, such as lattes. In Japan, it veins and stems are discarded and only matcha-infused sweets. In Japan, appears as an ingredient in various the leaves are ground into powder, matcha is now a standard fl avor in types of confectionery, both Western which is then dissolved in hot water chocolates and Western-style baked and Japanese. before serving. The type of tea leaf goods, as well as in traditional Matcha was originally served used to produce matcha differs from Japanese confectionery like yokan regular tea, and is also cultivated and (sweet bean jelly), rice crackers and processed differently. To discourage manju (buns stuffed with sweet the over-production of catechin—the bean paste). Matcha confectionery element that imparts the component prepared by Japanese tea shops is of bitterness—and to maintain a high also quite popular these days, and level of theanine, which supplies the include delicious matcha-based element of umami, tea plants are sweets like parfaits, gelatins and shaded with black cheesecloth about cakes; it is not uncommon to see 20 days before picking the leaves, in matcha soft ice cream sold outside order to screen the plants from intense their storefronts. Customers enjoy sunlight. Matcha leaves are carefully the slight bitterness of the matcha Matcha soft ice cream and handpicked, steamed and dried.