History Of Japanese Food

Naomici Ishige

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781136602542
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Antropologia

First published in 2001. The history of Japan is usually divided into ages and periods corresponding to changes in government. The ancient age, marked by the central authority of the imperial court and its bureaucracy, gave way in the twelfth century to the medieval age of warrior governments. The early modern age began in the sixteenth century with reunification and the emergence of the Tokugawa shogunate, and the modern age dates from the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Rather than the periodization used by historians, this book adopts an original system conceived by the author as a practical framework for investigating the dietary history of the Japanese.

PART ONE
The Dietary History of Japan

CHAPTER 1
The Prehistoric Era

1.1 The Paleolithic Age

The Japanese archipelago forms an arc stretching from north to south near the northeast edge of the Asian continent. The bulk of the land area is made up by the four large islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu. The country stretches some 3,500 kilometres from the northern tip of Hokkaido near the Sakhalin peninsula of Russia, to the southernmost island in the Okinawa group near Taiwan. A narrow strait separates the islands of Tsushima, off the northwest coast of Kyushu, from the Korean Peninsula.

During the glacial epoch, when the land surface was mostly frozen and the sea level receded, the archipelago was a single landform linked to the continent. Land bridges connected present-day Hokkaido to Siberia and Kyushu to Korea, and what is now the Japan Sea lay entirely inland. During that era, animals and humans could migrate freely from the main part of the continent.

Human habitation of the Japanese land area is known to date back as far as 600,000 years. Some 3,000 palaeolithic sites have been discovered, most of them from 30,000 to 10,000 years old, classified as late palaeolithic. The remains unearthed from those sites are limited to scant amounts of stone tools and stone shards from toolmaking. Land animals no doubt made up a large part of the diet of palaeolithic people, as the subarctic climate made edible plants scarce and fishing techniques had not developed. It is believed that the people of the time erected small, temporary shelters and lived in nomadic fashion, perhaps carrying light tents as they roamed over broad areas, hunting game or catching fish which ran upstream in season.

As virtually no remains of animal or vegetable foodstuffs have been discovered with the stone tool finds, we know very little about what palaeolithic people ate or how they prepared their food. Analysis of organic matter adhering to a 140,000-year-old stone tool discovered recently in Miyazaki Prefecture established that it is consistent with the fatty acid composition of the Naumann elephant, indicating that the implement was used to dismember such an animal [Nakano 1989:120-121]. In future, similar typological analyses of fatty acid traces, along with reconstruction of the palaeo-environment, may well yield an increasing amount of materials that would inform us about the human diet in palaeolithic times.

Groups of flame-scorched natural stones, about the size of a fist or slightly smaller, have been unearthed at palaeolithic sites in the Kanto region. They are believed to have been used for cooking, as there was organic matter of animal origin adhering to some of those scorched stones. We know of the use of earthen ovens on Pacific islands for cooking meat and fish and taro, yams or breadfruit, by placing the food on rocks and covering it with banana leaves and soil. This method was also utilized in palaeolithic Europe.

Scorched rocks from the neolithic (Jômon) period have also been found. Stones remained in occasional use for cooking even after the spread of earthenware and pans, and some techniques have been passed down to the present. For example, fisherfolk on the small island of Awashima in the Japan Sea use stones to prepare lunch along the shore. Freshly caught small fish are roasted over an open fire and then placed in a cylindrical bentô (portable meal) box made of lacquered tree bark (called a wappa). Water is poured over the fish, and it is momentarily boiled by adding a stone heated in the open fire. Miso is then dissolved in the fish broth to complete a version of the staple miso soup without using a pot.

Around 8000BCE, or approximately 400 human generations ago, the inhabitants of the archipelago experienced a major climatic shift. With the change from the cold, dry climate of the glacial epoch to the warm, humid climate of the later ice age, the conifer forests and steppe lands which had covered all Japan were restricted to northern and upland regions. In their place, luxuriant temperate forests began to cover the lowlands of the archipelago. As a result, large herbivores such as the mammoth, reindeer, bison and horse disappeared, and the range of cold-water fishes such as trout and salmon was limited to the north. The land bridges disappeared, leaving Japan separated from the Asian continent by the Japan Sea, and broken into different islands. Receiving warm ocean currents from the south and cold currents from the north along both the Pacific Ocean and Japan Sea coasts, the Japanese archipelago lies in one of the finest fishing regions of the world.

These climatic changes naturally changed the way people lived. Remains from about 8000BCE of shell mounds, graves, and home sites with holes for stout pillars indicate the start of the shift from a nomadic lifestyle to domiciled settlement. Indeed a uniform pattern of settlement began about the same time throughout the middle latitudes of the planet in areas where temperate forests were advancing, including Europe, West Asia, China and North America as well as Japan.

The economic basis of domiciliation in Japan consisted mainly in the gathering of carbohydrate-rich nuts growing in temperate forest zones, including acorns, walnuts and chestnuts. Hunting of deer and boar was also important. Moreover, as the sea level rose and the coastlines approached the forests, it became possible to select home sites that would allow regular harvesting of nuts and game from the forest as well as fish and shellfish from the ocean.

1.2 The Advent of Earthenware

Archaeologists regard the appearance of earthenware as the demarcation between palaeolithic and neolithic Japan. Due to the presence at most neolithic sites of earthenware displaying surface decorations that were impressed with twisted cords, the neolithic era of Japan is referred to as the jômon (cord-marked) period. Jômon earthenware is the oldest that has been discovered anywhere in the world, having been traced by carbon dating to as early as 14,500BCE. Scholars are divided on the question of whether such early use of pottery was a cultural feature developed exclusively in Japan, or was transmitted from an ancient, as yet unrediscovered culture in Siberia.

The use of earthenware allows food to be cooked by boiling. Since some of the earliest Jômon-period vessels bear marks from the application of fire, the earthenware pots were probably used more as cooking utensils than as storage vessels. Through boiling, food can be softened for eating, poisons can be removed, and astringent or bitter tastes can be altered. Boiling also makes even the tiniest shellfish or seeds edible. Furthermore, through retention of the nutrition and flavour dissolved in broth, it allows new developments in cooking which were not possible with the older technique of baking in earthen ovens.

The use of earthenware led to more active utilization of vegetable food resources. The population of the Japanese islands is estimated to have grown from about 20,000 at the start of the Jômon period to 260,000 at the end of the middle Jômon period in 2000BCE [Koyama 1984:173], To allow such an increase, new food resources must have been developed. The most common staple foods in Jômon times were various types of acorns, horse chestnuts, Japanese chestnuts, and walnuts. Most acorns contain tannin which makes them too bitter to be eaten raw. The bitterness can be removed from some types by pulverizing and soaking them in water, perhaps in a fine-meshed basket, whereas others must be boiled before they are soaked. It was through such procedures that acorns would initially have become part of the diet.

Although acorns have been found at some of the earliest Jômon sites, chestnuts and walnuts, which can be eaten raw, predominate. At sites from the middle Jômon period, when the population had increased, there are sharply larger amounts of high-tannin acorns and horse chestnuts which require preparation to remove harshness. These were typically stored in pits beside the homes. Horse chestnuts, which contain non-water-soluble saponin and aloin, must be neutralized with alkali to make them edible. We suppose that the bitterness was removed by boiling them together with substantial quantities of ash, a technique that survives today as a folk custom in certain areas of Japan. Homes with ovens fitted with special apparatus for collecting ash have been found at various sites.

The yields from these nuts were extremely high. Koyama Shûzô has calculated that for one kind of acorn, the yield from 100 ha would be 65 kilograms. In terms of food energy available from a standard plot of land, that amounts to one-eighth the nutritional value of paddy rice (the most productive agricultural crop), and 500 times that of the wild boar, which was then the most commonly hunted animal. Whereas the population merely subsisted during palaeolithic and early Jômon times by relying on the catch from hunting, it multiplied with the subsequent shift toward vegetable resources, mainly nuts.

It was during the era when nuts came to be eaten in great quantity that Jômon pottery evolved considerably and began to be made in many sizes and shapes. This differentiation no doubt signifies the diversification of cooking and eating methods. It is believed that shallow bowls were used for kneading starches made from nuts and wild rhizomes, while decorated vessels were used for serving food. Discoveries have included pieces of starch which are thought to have been kneaded into a cookie-like shape and buried in oven ashes for baking. Another probable cooking method was boiling round dumplings of starch in pots. There may well have been one-pot meals of such starches boiled together with meat, fish, shellfish or wild plants. It is also likely that mixtures of starch and water were boiled in pots and eaten in paste form.

Shell middens are a common feature of Jômon sites, indicating that marine resources were a major part of the diet. Although coastal fishes were often eaten, the larger role was played by shellfish, which were easily gathered and were steadily and amply available. Analysis of the accumulation patterns of these refuse heaps shows that people frequently collected and discarded shells in large quantities, exceeding the amount that could be eaten at one time. While it is a chore to pry open a living mollusk, it is easy to extract the meat after boiling. Presumably during the gathering season large amounts of shellfish were boiled en masse, and the cooked meat was dried and later used for trading with communities located far inland. The broth obtained from such a procedure would naturally have been enjoyed as soup.

Sites from the late Jômon period (2000-400 BCE) have yielded earthenware vessels that were used exclusively for making salt by boiling down sea water. Salt may also have been produced through a method that is known to have been used in Japan until recently, whereby sea water is repeatedly poured over seaweed and evaporated, then the seaweed is washed with salt water and that salt-rich water is boiled down. Poetry from the eighth century CE speaks of burning seaweed to make salt. The process referred to likely involved pouring sea water over seaweed and drying it many times, then burning it to obtain a mixture of salt and ash. Although there is no archaeological evidence for it, this method may have been used in Jômon times as well. It is also likely that in coastal areas sea water was added for flavour when boiling food. As rock salt is not made in Japan and there are no salt lakes or salt springs, inland areas always relied on salt made from sea water. Thus since ancient times salt has been a vital and precious trading commodity.

Besides salt, Japanese pepper (sanshô; Zanthoxylum piperitum) has also been found at Jômon sites and was presumably used as a seasoning, much as it is today. This spice, made from the leaves and nuts of a tree that originated in Japan, is widely used to add a tangy zest to Japanese dishes.

1.3 Jômon Society and Dietary Culture

The neolithic revolution that began in Mesopotamia was named for the advent of stone tools made by grinding rather than chipping, and yet it involved much more than technological reform in the sphere of toolmaking. It also signifies the shifts in society that accompanied changes in food production, that is, the change from hunter-gatherer society to agricultural and pastoral society. In Japan, neolithic or Jômon society had a somewhat different character than the contemporary societies that evolved in the heartland of the Eurasian continent. While it possessed technological elements such as polished stone toolmaking and earthenware pottery which were common to neolithic peoples elsewhere in the world, Jômon society did not practise either intensive land cultivation or the domestication and breeding of livestock. It was a neolithic society of hunter-gatherers.

Though Jômon society was not agricultural it was not entirely without cultivated crops. Excavations have established the use by the third millennium BCE of grains including buckwheat, wheat and millet (own; Setaria italica), as well as the ryokutô bean (Vigno radiata), perilla mint (egoma; P. frutescens), and gourds used both as containers and food. The grains would later be systematically cultivated, initially in slash-and-burn fashion. Some scholars have interpreted the discovery of grain at Jômon sites to mean that slash-and-burn agriculture was practised in Jômon times. However, as both the quantities of grain and the number of sites where it has been discovered are very small, it is unreasonable to view crop production as part of the economic foundation of Jômon society. There is a considerable likelihood that the grains found at Jômon sites were transmitted from the area spanning the Korean Peninsula and nearby Siberian coast. We must presume either that attempts at cultivating the transmitted grains proved unsuccessful owing to the insufficient technological knowledge of the time and were abandoned; or that grain cultivation was practised in Jômon times using extremely non-intensive techniques, on a scale that was minute by comparison to the gathering of wild plants, and the cultivated lands were quite localized. The non-grain plants were probably cultivated in kitchen gardens next to the homes, and used in small quantities to add variety to meals, rather than as main foods. The gourds, of which only a few relics have been found, are likely to have served mainly as containers. More than a thousand Jômon sites have been surveyed to date and the research results, taken comprehensively, make clear that Jômon society was one of hunter-gatherers.

The sole domesticated animal of the Jômon era was the dog. Jômon culture was from the beginning marked by use of the bow and arrow and the raising of dogs. Deer and wild boar were the main hunting prey. The skeletal remains of some 70 types of mammals have been found at Jômon sites, but at most sites more than 90 per cent of the bones are from deer and wild boar. They were chased down with the aid of hunting dogs, which have survived in continuous lines for at least 10,000 years until today. That hunters treated their dogs as precious companions is suggested by the discovery of many dog burial sites.

It is said that many Japanese can name more than twenty kinds of edible fishes, while a European or American can rarely name more than ten. Statistically, the Japanese today eat more fish than any other nation. A Buddhism-related taboo on eating the flesh of mammals (see Chapter 3) made fish the predominant animal foodstuff for several centuries, and this undoubtedly played a role in making Japan into the nation of fish lovers it is today. Yet the custom of eating much fish dates from Jômon times.

The convoluted shapes of the Japanese islands make for extraordinarily long coastlines. In addition, during the fifth and sixth millennia BCE the sea level was some five metres higher than it is today, submerging many of today's plains and bringing the sea in convoluted patterns up to the foot of today's tablelands, creating ideal conditions for fishing. Moreover, the seas around Japan, where the warm Japan current from the south and the cold Kurile current from the north come together, contain more species of fish than all but a very few areas of the world.

Bone fishing hooks, harpoons made from deer bones or antlers, and sinkers for fishing nets have been discovered in Jômon shell mounds, and certainly traps for catching various types of fish existed, although no traces remain as they were made from vegetable materials. The bones of 71 species offish have been found in Jômon shell mounds. Open-sea fishery developed in the Tohoku region, where dugout canoes were ridden into the offing to harpoon bluefin tuna and bonito, and fishing was done with large hooks. It is likely that the stimulus for the development of a fishing industry for large migratory fishes was that they were easy to preserve and so were valued as trade commodities. Tuna and bonito meat keep well after being boiled and then steamed and dried in the sun until hard. They are kept today in that form, called namari or namari-bushi, and typically eaten after being boiled with vegetables. Katsuo-bushi, bonito that is smoked after boiling, turns as hard as wood and keeps for years. Today katsuo-bushi is commonly used to make soup stock (dashi), by placing shavings in boiling water to extract the essence (see Section 9.1). In ancient times, apart from being used for stock, katsuo-bushi was jerked for gnawing.

Among many peoples, fishing in the open sea is viewed as men's work, while women g...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction — The Historical Framework
• PART ONE THE DIETARY HISTORY OF JAPAN
• PART TWO THE DIETARY CULTURE OF THE JAPANESE
• References