Takase: Fine Japanese Calligraphy

II. COMMON EVERYDAY FOOD

Black-and-white photograph of two people kneeling at a low table, facing each other, each with something held in the hands. The one at the left has short wavy dark hair and wears a garment with narrow vertical stripes; the one at the right has the hair drawn back and wears a darker garment with a patterned band at the waist. The table holds many small bowls and dishes, some with lids, a pot with a handle, cups and chopsticks. Shelves with a few utensils hanging above show behind them. — For breakfast bean-paste soup is indispensable

The ordinary daily food of Japan differs with the various classes, but I shall set down the foods that constitute the general foundation of the three meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Breakfast Dishes

1. Gohan (boiled rice)

2. Misoshiru (bean-paste soup)

3. Kō-no-mono (pickles)

These three form the basis of the morning meal, and with them are used eggs, fish and shell-fish tsuku-

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Black-and-white photograph of two people in a kitchen with a tiled wall and a window. At the left a person in a long pale apron-like garment tips a round container over a large pot, and pale grains pour in. At the right a second person in a pale garment with a striped lower part and sandals stands at a counter beside a pot. Cabinets and a sink stand at the right, and pots hang on a rack at the upper left. — Putting washed rice into a pot

dani (foods boiled down in soy), shiokonbu (the laminaria boiled in brine and soy), nori (laver), nimame (boiled beans), various kinds of bean-paste dishes, pickled plums, etc.

How to Cook Rice

Polished rice is generally used, but recently for nutritive reasons, half-polished rice, rice in embryo, etc. have gained considerable popularity.

The rice is washed, put into a pot and boiled in an equal or greater quantity of water. It must never be stirred while boiling, but covered with a wooden cover about 1.5 inches thick and cooked under pressure. After about twenty minutes, the water is all boiled off and the rice puffed and soft.

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Bean-Paste Soup

The miso (bean-paste) for the soup is made by boiling soy beans and crushing them, adding rice or wheat ferment and salt, then putting them in a tub and letting them go through a sort of fermenting process for more than two months.

Bean-paste soup is made by mashing miso well in a mortar, adding water, straining in a pan and boiling with vegetables of the season. It is flavoured with grated dried bonito or small dried fish. Besides vegetables, sometimes bean-curd, fish, eggs, etc. are added.

Kō-no-mono

Kō-no-mono are also called tsukemono and almost correspond to the pickles of the West. They are eaten invariably, not only at breakfast, but at all other meals, and are so important that the rarest dish would be found incomplete without them.

There are many kinds of pickles, but the principal ones are pickled radish, fresh-pickled radish, pickled greens, salted egg-plant and melon, pickled turnips, all sorts of vegetables pickled in saké mash, mustard pickles, pickled plums, rice-bran mash pickles, etc. Besides these there are all sorts of home-made pickles.

Takuanzuke (pickled giant radish), which can be kept for three years, got its name from the Zen priest Takuan, who is said to have been the first to make it. First the radishes are dried, then they are put into a pickling tub with rice-bran and salt, covered and left to pickle with a big stone on the lid.

Umeboshi (pickled plums) are made by pickling

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Black-and-white photograph of an empty kitchen seen from a corner. A wall of small tiles runs behind the counters; a tall pot with a lid stands on a stove at the left and two smaller pots stand on the counter at the center. A window with a frosted panel is set in the wall at the upper right and a lamp hangs at the top. At the right a tall counter block with a pale top holds a tray of cups and small bowls, and the floor is tiled in squares. — A well-equipped kitchen in a modern Japanese home

first in brine, then after they have been dried in the sunshine of midsummer, they are again pickled with perilla leaves. From early times the people of Japan have eaten them at or before breakfast, and they may be called a “natural medicine.”

Noon Lunch Dishes

The noon meal is generally simple, boiled rice being the main dish, with boiled vegetables, boiled lentils (soy beans, black beans or peas boiled and flavoured with sugar and soy), dried fish, bean-curd or eggs. And there are always pickles.

Sometimes udon (a kind of macaroni made of wheat flour), sōmen (vermicelli) or soba (buckwheat noodles) are used in place of boiled rice, and always eaten with

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Black-and-white photograph taken from above of three people kneeling on cushions around a low round table, in a room with a mat floor and sliding paper doors, with a small vase holding a flower in an alcove at the back. The table holds many small bowls and dishes. At the left a person looks down at a small dish held in both hands; at the back a person holds a small bowl and chopsticks; at the right a person holds a bowl. A round tray with a pot and cups lies on the mats at the lower center, and a round container stands at the lower left. — The family in the evening meal

a broth made of bonito soup stock, sugar and soy poured over them.

Dinner Dishes

The evening meal consists of boiled rice, with some of the following: otsuyu** (clear soup), sashimi (sliced raw fish), yakimono (broiled fish), sukiyaki* (chicken or beef soy stew), various scalloped dishes, tempura* (fritters), chawanmushi* (steamed egg custard), kabayaki* (spitchcock) or boiled vegetables. And pickles always. The most simple of foods is bean-curd.

** Clear soup is briefly explained under the Doll Festival menu (P. 41).

* Chicken and beef sukiyaki, spitchcocked eels, tempura and chawanmushi will be found under the heading “Famous Local Foods” (P. 71).

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Four black-and-white photographs in two rows of two. Upper left: a knife blade comes down at the neck of a whole fish with scales, lying on a board, with a hand pressing on its head, and a slatted pad with narrow leaves lies at the lower left. Upper right: a flat pale piece of fish lies on the board with a hand pressing at the left and small trays at the upper right. Lower left: a knife cuts thin slices at the edge of the board, with a few pale slices lying at the lower left. Lower right: taken from above, a round bowl holding pale slices, a small dish of dark liquid and a pair of chopsticks lying across a small rest, on a dark ground. — How to prepare *sashimi*, or sliced raw fish

Fresh fish is to be had everywhere in Japan, and raw fish (sea-bream, tunny, etc.) cut into shining thin slices (sashimi) is served with fresh grated radish or horse radish, and eaten dipped in vinegar sauce or soy.

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Black-and-white photograph taken from above and close of a hand holding a wide-bladed knife over rectangular pale slabs on a dark board, with more slabs at the lower right and a second hand steadying them at the right. At the left stands a round bowl with a scalloped rim, pale inside with dark painted streaks, beside a tub. — Vendor cutting bean-curd

How Bean-curd is Made

Tōfu (bean-curd) is made by soaking soy beans in water, mashing them, straining the mass through cloth and solidifying with the addition of magnesium chloride. It is a very nutritive food. The mush left after straining tōfu is called u-no-hana (deutzia flowers) and is used in cooking vegetables.

Oyatsu

Oyatsu is the term used for afternoon refreshment and kobiru for eating between meals in the morning. All labouring people, without exception, eat at these times, and light cakes and drinks are given to children.

Workmen eat cakes, udon (a kind of macaroni), soba

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Black-and-white photograph of a round plate with a painted design of leaves and blossoms around its rim, on a pale ground. On it lie a small group of rounded pale and dark pieces and a few long pale slender pieces, and a long flat stick lies across the lower part of the plate. — Kō-no-mono (Japanese pickles)

(buckwheat noodles) and simple sushi (vinegar-spiced rice), but in farm villages, the workers eat rice-balls, boiled or baked sweet potatoes, root of taro boiled with the skin on, etc. In addition coarse tea is drunk.

Children eat light cakes, wafers, Western biscuits, sweetmeats, cake and toast with milk, cocoa, stewed fruit juice, etc.

Nowadays, Western teas are often held between two and four o’clock, when tea and all sorts of cakes and sandwiches are served, and there are occasions, too, when family members meet for such refreshment.