“What did you eat?” would probably be the first question we would ask someone returning from a fancy meal. But in late medieval and early modern Japan a more appropriate question to ask would have been: “What could you eat?”—especially if the banquet was at the imperial court or for a high-ranking samurai like the shogun or a powerful daimyo. This question recognizes the odd fact that avoiding eating was often the most polite thing to do at a formal banquet. On some occasions, manners compelled guests to delay touching certain dishes until important moments in the banquet, and to not eat them at all until they had admired them in a prescribed way. In other instances the polite thing to do was to pretend to eat something, surreptitiously pocketing a morsel of food instead of consuming it. Some dishes served at banquets were meant to be taken home rather than eaten immediately. Certain snacks were served in a form that could not be consumed at all. In extreme instances, a guest might sit down to an elaborate and visually stunning banquet in which only a small number of dishes could be eaten. To know what to do in these circumstances, diners had to rely on past custom, visual cues, and a familiarity with the symbolic associations of ingredients and of the meanings of certain place settings, and remain attentive to any hints from their host about what they were expected to eat and what they should not try to consume.
The question “What could you eat?” also has direct bearing on the main theme of this book: cuisine in premodern Japan can be defined as a fantasy with food, a process that fashioned artistic and intellectual content from food production and consumption, so that people saw beauty and meaning in food rather than viewing it as simply something to put in their mouths. The knife ceremonies (shikib
ch), discussed in the previous chapter, enabled “men of the carving knife” (hchnin) to showcase their occupational skills at banquets in brilliant displays of carving fish and fowl as both an entertainment and a religious ritual, but the primary duty of these chefs was the creation of elaborate banquets for daimyo, shoguns, aristocrats, and the emperor.
The most formal of these banquets was the shikish ryri, which we could translate as “ceremonial cuisine” or “ceremonial style of cooking,” recalling the ambiguities of the term ryri for premodern Japan, as described in chapter 1. Not a term precisely defined in the period—or by scholars today—ceremonial cuisine was synonymous with practices of not eating that demanded the appreciation of food in other ways, sometimes as a symbol evoking transcendent values such as martial virtues or marital felicity, and other times as an art form akin to flower arrangement or sculpture. The persons chiefly responsible for creating the guidelines for viewing food in these ways—that is, for creating this culinary code, to borrow Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson’s turn of speech—were the same people who made these dishes, the hchnin. They wrote about these matters in their occupational writings called culinary texts (ryrisho). Because these texts provide the main source of information for this discussion, it is important to understand their characteristics before examining what they reveal about not eating as a means to designate the thought-provoking and artistic aspects of food.
CHNINThe early and detailed culinary writings (ryrisho) of hchnin include not only information about knife ceremonies (shikibch) but also recipes, descriptions of model banquets, information about table manners, and most important for this chapter, details about the significant role of inedible dishes in banquets as markers of artistry and metaphor. From the late fifteenth century through the mid-seventeenth century, before the advent of published culinary books (ryribon), these texts were the dominant writings about cuisine.1 In contrast to the ryribon, which were printed works for a popular audience, culinary texts were created by and for a select readership of specialists to facilitate creation of the most refined dining experiences for the elite. Even after the advent of published works, culinary texts remained authoritative because they described an elite style of dining that lasted until the end of the Edo period.
Table 2 presents a list of the earliest culinary texts.2 As we can see from the titles, most of these culinary texts, beginning with Shij School Text on Food Preparation, are associated with a specific hchnin lineage, a hereditary line of chefs like the Shij
and the 
kusa, who espoused distinct styles of cooking.3 The creation of these culinary texts marked the consolidation of these hchnin lineages and their artistic styles in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.4 However, practitioners claimed a much older historical legacy for their lineages dating back to as early as the ninth century.
Though distinct in their subject matter, culinary texts were representative of wider trends in arts and manuscript culture that prized “secret” writings associated with established lineages of occupational specialists. Writing, possessing, and selectively disseminating specialized texts were prominent ways to demonstrate authority in medieval and early modern Japan.5 Accordingly, “secret writings” (hidensho), texts discretely transmitted from master to disciple, were ubiquitous during these periods. They covered subjects ranging from carpentry to garden design to the martial arts to swimming to the tea ceremony. Especially valued were texts that demonstrated connections with prominent families. These followed a widely used strategy that equated membership either by blood or by apprenticeship in a prominent lineage as indispensable to any claim to authority in a given subject, from poetry to Noh theater to religious practice.
When we move beyond these broad generalizations, it is, unfortunately, difficult to connect the aforementioned culinary texts to specific authors and readers. Colophons in manuscripts usually provide the date and author, and sometimes the intended reader, but these offer little help in contextualizing the culinary texts. Seven of the ten texts listed in the table do not provide the name of the author, although a few bear the names of copyists who might be the actual authors. For example, Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House (Yamanouchi ryrisho) contains the statement that it is a transcription of “oral instructions of Yamanouchi Saburo Saemon (n.d.) of the Headquarters of the Middle Palace Guards (hyefu).”6 The Yamanouchi house became a prominent warrior house in Kyushu in the sixteenth century, but there is no evidence to suggest that someone in this lineage produced this text. Not much more is known about the people mentioned as authors of the other writings. Shij Takashige (n.d.), named as author of Ancient Traditions of Flavorings for Warrior Households (Buke chmi kojitsu), might be an early master of the Shij lineage, but he is otherwise unknown. Likewise, kusa Kinmochi (n.d.), mentioned as author of Record of Three Formal Rounds of Drinking and 7-5-3 Trays (Shikisankon shichigosan zenbuki), could have been from the kusa family of hchnin in the employ of the Ashikaga shoguns. Ise Sadayori, specialist in warrior ritual, indicates in his text on bakufu customs and rituals, Sg zshi (ca. 1529), that the Ashikaga shoguns employed chefs from both the Shinji and kusa schools.7 Chefs from the kusa school later served the Shimazu daimyo house in Kyushu from 1615 to 1855.8 However, in the absence of other evidence about kusa Kinmochi and the rest of the people named as authors, their identities remain the object of speculation. For that reason, modern scholarship on these texts considers these works to be anonymous and has focused on their contents, not their authorship.9
TABLE 2 EARLY HCHNIN CULINARY TEXTS (RYRISHO)
|
|
Date of |
Shij |
Unknown |
1489 |
Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House (Yamanouchi ry |
Unknown |
1497 |
Ancient Traditions of Flavorings for Warrior Households (Buke ch |
Shij |
1535 |
Transcript of Lord |
Unknown |
c. 1535–73 |
Transcript of the Knife (H |
Unknown |
c. 1540–1610 |
Culinary Text (Ry |
Unknown |
1573 |
Culinary Text of the |
Unknown |
c. 1573–1643 |
Record of Three Formal Rounds of Drinking and 7-5-3 Trays (Shikisankon shichigosan zenbuki) |
|
1606 |
Shij |
Unknown |
1612 |
Secret Writings on Culinary Slicing (Ry |
Takahashi Gozaemon et al. |
Before 1659 |
Secret Writings on Culinary Slicing (Ryri kirikata hidensh, hereafter Secret Writings), published before 1659, provides the most detailed information about authorship and readership, but it also raises the most questions. Secret Writings is a compilation of eight different culinary texts.10 After each of its volumes, it bears a colophon stating that it was a transmission of writings of the Shij school from Takahashi Gozaemon to Nakamura J
saemon (n.d) in 1642.11 According to the culinary historians Kawakami Kz and colleagues, both of these men were chefs in the employ of the Tokugawa shoguns.12 In the colophon, several additional authorities are listed before Takahashi’s name, as people in the “Shij lineage who have transmitted and received this” (Shijke denju). They are Sonobe Shinbye, Yoshida Go’uemon, Sonobe Izumi no Kami, Haneda Kamiuemon, and Takahashi Konbye.13 However, no conclusive evidence associates these individuals with Secret Writings, or indicates that they actually existed. Although these may have been real people who authored or once held these writings, the use of their names in this way suggests that Takahashi Gozaemon or someone else simply added these five names as a way to grant cohesion and authority to the work, a practice seen in other published collections of “secret” writings in this period.14 Significantly, the earliest extant version of Secret Writings lacked a shared title for its nine volumes.15 In other words, the consistent use of the same names of culinary authorities provided evidence to readers that the texts were related. While the individuals listed were not themselves famous—we know this by the lack of other mention of them in period sources—their family names were recognizable as hchnin who served the Tokugawa bakufu. Thus if the names were simply concocted and added to the text by someone as a way to lend greater legitimacy and coherence to the writings, that person could not have created a more authoritative provenance for a work on cooking.
Adding a title with the words Secret Writings (hidensh) gave the work further prestige and lent it irony, since, besides being the only text in table 2 with the word secret in the title, it was also the only one to appear in print in the Edo period. The publishing trade in the seventeenth century saw the market value of “secret writings”; many older treatises in fields such as Noh theater, tea ceremony, and flower arrangement that had once been circulated in manuscript form were being revealed and published. Other “secret writings” were simply being cut out of whole cloth for this new readership, such as a text on the tea ceremony, Nanp’s Record (Nanproku). This work, composed of teachings attributed to a disciple of tea master Sen no Riky, was actually concocted by Tachibana Jitsuzan (d. 1708), who hoped to use the text to jump-start a new school of tea. Earlier culinary texts written by hchnin before Secret Writings may not have been labeled as secret, but they were secret in practice by virtue of the fact that they were created for a restricted audience of initiates. They also remained secret because they were not widely disseminated until after the Edo period.16
The attempt to make Secret Writings appeal to a wider readership by adding the names of authorities and by using the word secret in the title indicates the work’s transitional nature. On the one hand, the information in Secret Writings stemmed from the older traditions of hchnin. For example, the first volume, Secrets of the Knife (Hch himitsu), provides information about preparing foods for courtly celebrations, along with detailed descriptions of cutting ceremonies (shikibch) that were the hchnin’s trademarks. Three of the other texts in this compilation consist of diagrams of different designs for slicing fish and fowl in the knife ceremonies. The general tone of the volumes is specialized, and the contents difficult to decipher. On the other hand, as a published text that saw at least three print runs in the latter half of the 1600s, Secret Writings was available to an audience that encompassed not only professional hchnin but also aristocrats, upper-level warriors, and wealthy townsmen—in other words, anyone who could afford the cost of a technical work priced as much as several weeks of meals.17 Secret Writings was also contemporaneous with Tales of Cookery (Ryri monogatari), published in 1643, the first culinary book written for an audience other than hchnin.18 Despite the fact that the former was for specialists and the latter was for a wider readership, both works share a feature common to published culinary books in that they have tables of contents, an innovation not found in earlier hchnin writings. For these reasons, Secret Writings stood at a threshold in the history of cuisine in Japan. It marked the beginning of a boom in culinary books written for a popular audience by a variety of authors outside of the ranks of hchnin; and, it was the first hchnin text to divulge publicly the “secrets” of the hchnin’s art, from ritual cutting to the ceremonial meals served at court. Secret Writings was also the last text to draw exclusively from the culinary texts of hchnin. Later authors who wrote about cutting ceremonies and ceremonial cuisine also incorporated information about published culinary books, such as Tales of Cookery, in their efforts to adapt hchnin traditions for a popular audience.19 Hence, Secret Writings both marked the popularization of knowledge of the hchnins’ craft and signaled an end to their monopoly on culinary writings, as published culinary books began to dominate this field.
The characteristics of medieval culinary texts can be described in terms of what these writings lack in comparison to modern cookbooks or even early modern culinary books (ryribon). First, culinary texts omit a preface that states the reason for the work’s compilation. They simply begin, and consist of simple entries on different topics listed consecutively. For example, Shij School Text on Food Preparation (hereafter Shij School Text) consists of sixty topics listed one after another, ranging from the tools needed for carving ceremonies, to the different qualities of ingredients, to methods of food preparation and serving. In other words, culinary texts are lists of information.
Some of the entries in culinary texts are recipes, but these tend to lack the specificity of ones found in early modern culinary books, marking a second distinction between these two types of writings. The culinary book Tales of Cookery offers the following recipe for Snow Cakes (yuki mochi), which can serve as a useful point of comparison for measuring the recipes in earlier culinary writings by hchnin. This recipe is typical of ones found in published culinary books, in that it lists ingredients (although only a few books indicate the specific amounts to use) and provides some information about preparation (although not as much as modern cookbooks). These added details would be helpful to readers of culinary books, who would not necessarily have the same level of expertise as professional hchnin.
To 1.8 liters [1 sh] of nonglutinous rice add .54 liters [3 g] of glutinous rice and pulverize these into flour. Add a little water to moisten. Spread a cloth in a steamer. Flatten and then steam. Put dried persimmons, chestnuts, and nutmeg in the middle. To make them yellow, moisten the rice with water infused with gardenia.20
In contrast to this recipe, the ones in culinary texts by hchnin are terse to the point of being cryptic, as in the case for the recipe for sashimi from Shij School Text: “For sashimi: wasabi vinegar is for carp, ginger vinegar is for sea bream, smart-weed vinegar [tadesu] is for sea bass, mustard vinegar [mikeshizu] is for ray, and fish vinegar is for turbot.”21 This is the earliest recipe for cutting fish into thin strips to make sashimi, but the word sashimi itself is not defined, nor are directions provided for cutting the fish, which is the most important part of making the dish.22 The entry is meant for a chef who already knows how to prepare sashimi but needs to know the proper sauce to serve with it in an age before soy sauce became the usual accompaniment.23 In comparison, Tales of Cookery devotes an entire section to sashimi, providing twenty-seven recipes.24 Some of these are shorter than the one in Shij School Text, but others are much more descriptive, offering advice about cutting techniques. For example, the recipe for duck and goose sashimi in Tales of Cookery suggests two methods of preparation: steaming a whole bird and serving it with a sauce made from Japanese pepper, miso, and vinegar; or removing the bones and cutting it into small, round pieces and serving these with either a sauce made from wasabi and vinegar or one of ginger and miso.25
The first six texts listed in table 2 are largely compilations of recipes, excepting Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House, which has two features that distinguish it from the others and make it more valuable for understanding hchnin cuisine. First, it includes general pronouncements about cooking, serving food, and table manners. Second, it provides diagrams of how dishes should be served in a formal banquet. The pronouncements, which appear at the beginning and end of the text, offer some interesting pointers, but they are too diverse in their subject matter to allow us to draw general conclusions. A few examples will suffice. According to one of the eight pronouncements at the beginning of the text: “At times when there has been a long interval of sake [drinking] after a light meal, it is appropriate to serve chilled barley noodles as a snack.” According to another one: “For a daimyo, be sure to serve chopsticks with the snack foods accompanying each round of drinks.”26 The text concludes with eleven more comments: “Don’t mix the fermented intestines of sea cucumbers [konowata] with dried sea cucumber intestines [iriko].” This instruction may have been prompted by concerns about taste or by fears of indigestion. Another concluding comment reminds readers that the only proper way to eat hawks is with the hands, not with chopsticks.27 These comments give us some idea about table manners and perhaps food taboos, but they are otherwise unremarkable. Other culinary texts have similar notes about manners and food safety, but these are interspersed with the recipes.
The illustrations in Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House are the second feature that distinguishes this work from other fifteenth- and sixteenth-century culinary texts, and these illustrations provide a context for understanding how dishes could be assembled to create a meal. The illustrations themselves are only diagrams. A square with flattened corners indicates a sanb, a ceremonial wooden tray on a stand.28 Circles and other shapes within the square indicate dishes on the tray. All the circles look similar, so it is fortunate that the contents of the dishes are labeled. Marginal comments next to the diagrams indicate that these trays of food are related: each is served simultaneously to a guest in a dining format used for elite banquets called the “main tray” style of serving (honzen ryri). Before studying examples of honzen meals in Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House, and the important role of inedible foods in these banquets, we need to familiarize ourselves with the main-tray banqueting style.
As far back as at least the Nara period (710–84), the typical mode of dining for commoners and nobles was from an individual serving tray.29 The simplest of these trays might be little more than a wooden board called an oshiki, which allowed the commoner who sat on the floor of his home to keep his meal of soup and grains off of the ground. Aristocrats who sat on the floor to eat made use of more stylish trays with short supporting legs to raise their meals farther off of the floor, making them easier to consume. Picture scrolls such as Story Book of Hungry Ghosts (Gaki sshi) dating from the early Kamakura period (1185–1333) depict aristocrats dining from individual trays. By the Muromachi period (1336–1573), a style of banqueting had developed from customs surrounding formal shogunal visitations (onari) to high-ranking warriors and temples. It featured multiple trays of food served simultaneously to guests, beginning with a main tray (honzen) and several auxiliary trays served adjacent to it in front of the diner.30 This style of presentation became customary among elite samurai from the late fourteenth century and later spread to other classes, becoming, until the modern period, the most formal mode of dining.31 The structure of honzen dining, which featured rice, soup, pickles and side dishes, set the pattern for Japanese meals until after World War II.32
Medieval and early modern sources listed a number of rules for honzen dining that hold true for most descriptions of these banquets.
João Rodrigues, a Portuguese Jesuit who traveled in Japan in the last decades of the sixteenth century, provides a concise portrait of a honzen meal that helps to contextualize these rules. His description of a main tray and two additional ones corresponds to the format found in Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House:
Nowadays at banquets they usually place three principal tables in front of each guest. All the tables are generally of white cedar wood square in shape and with legs a span in height; the table placed in the center is the highest and has another table on either side. The covered bowl of rice is placed on the middle table in the left-hand corner nearest the guest, while the bowl of shiru [soup], also covered, is in the right-hand corner, and the salt-cellar stands next to them; and there is food, either fresh fish or bird, on a plate in each of the two corners and in the middle. The second table after this is placed on the right-hand side and bears the principal shiru, as has been described, and two dishes. The third table is placed on the left with another shiru and two other dishes, one of which will be their highly thought of raw fish cut into small pieces; along with it there will be a dish containing a tart sauce or one which burns like mustard, and this takes away the rawness of the fish.40
The locations of the dishes on the trays held significance, according to Rodrigues, who comments, “Each dish has a fixed and suitable place on the table [i.e., tray] and a dish which is in one place is never put in another.”41 This comment explains why the author of Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House took pains to draw the location of the dishes in the menus.
Manners dictated how the foods on the trays should be consumed. Transcript of Lord kusa’s Oral Instructions (kusadono yori sden no kikigaki) explains that diners should begin by “wetting their chopsticks in the soup on the main tray and picking up the rice bowl; after eating rice, sip the soup, but do not eat any morsels in it.” The guest would then take a little salt with the chopstick, eat some more rice, and sip more of the soup, before finally eating one of the side dishes on the main tray. But before trying the soup on the second tray, the guest had to take another bite of rice.42 As this text indicates, it took some knowledge of table manners to enjoy a honzen banquet politely, and guides to etiquette written for commoners in the Edo period dedicated considerable attention to the subject of dining so that commoners could gain confidence in this elaborate style of eating.43
For a concrete example of a honzen meal, we can turn to Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House, which contains a description of two complete menus, including the snacks that precede and follow them.44 Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House is not a record of actual meals, because its menus are not dated and only vague indications about seasonality are provided. Instead, this text, like all of the culinary writings by hchnin, was intended as a general model to follow in planning banquets. For this reason, the briefly noted recipes offer readers alternatives depending on the availability of ingredients.
Since both of the menus in Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House follow the same format of 5-4-3 (i.e., three trays, each with a soup, and with five, four, and three side dishes, respectively), we can focus our attention on just one of these. The menu translated here is the second of the two and is identified as one for summer.45
FIGURE 3. Main tray from Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House (Yamanouchi ryrisho)
The main tray includes the dishes shown in figure 3. The diagram of the “cut corner” (sumikiri) tray contains the prerequisites for honzen cuisine, reproduced from the perspective of the diner, who would find the soup in the nearest corner on the right of the tray and the rice in the nearest corner on the left. The cooked salad was a variation of “fish salad” (namasu), a typical dish for a main tray in the Muromachi period consisting of sliced fish and vegetables in a marinade. The type of fish is not specified, but Shij School Text, which stated that namasu was absolutely required for the main tray, includes recipes for Shredded Fish Salad (ito namasu) made from crucian carp, Yellow-Rose Fish Salad made of turbot, and Butter-Fish [managatsuo] Salad made with water pepper and vinegar.46 Turning to another dish on the main tray, Shij School Text explains that, when octopus is served as a side dish, it should be cut into thin, round slices with the suction cups and skin removed.47 The sushi here is not specified either—the author of Shij School Text opined that sweetfish (ayu), a freshwater fish, was best to use for sushi.48 Sweetfish appears in several dishes in this menu, as in the fish salad on the second tray, shown in figure 4.
FIGURE 4. Second tray from Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House
A notation provides some cooking instructions and suggestions for the “summer dish” (natsu mono) on the second tray. “Include something like a white pickling melon. An eggplant is also fine. Simmer it in a light soy sauce. Allow the salted sea bream to marinate in sake.” The “summer dish” is not specified in this menu, but a dish with the same name appears in Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House with the gloss that it is salmon roe.49 No cooking directions are provided for the heron, but it is probably served in a soup, given its location in the right corner of the tray and the requirement for a soup on each tray.50 Sweetfish must have been a favorite, since it reappears on the third tray, shown in figure 5. The notation for this tray reads: “The soup is a fish soup. Any type of fish is fine. The dried fish is steamed and covered with sake. Serve the grilled sweetfish with green leaves underneath [as a garnish].” The rice on the third tray violates the rule that only the main tray should have rice, but in this case it appears that the cold soup is meant to be eaten as a sauce on top of the rice. Having an extra serving of rice on this tray would allow diners to keep the rice on the main tray unadulterated, a suitable neutral complement to the rest of the meal after pouring the soup on the rice on the third tray.51
FIGURE 5. Third tray from Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House
This menu includes an additional tray (hikimono). As noted earlier, the contents of hikimono were meant for guests to take home with them, or they were passed around at the banquet. Since this tray contains a soup, it would have been difficult for guests to take this tray of foods home, indicating that the tray was either passed around to the guests or the hikimono is simply a fourth tray served to each guest individually.52
The notation indicates:
When an oriental pickling melon [shirouri] is not available, use a winter melon [kamo uri] for the following. Slice the melon into fairly large pieces of approximately four centimeters [1 sun 5 bu] in length, and simmer them in flavored miso, adding shavings of dried abalone. The halfbeak [sayori] is steamed and covered with sake. A halfbeak is a fish similar to a sand borer [kisu]. The small bird is grilled [aburu].53
The handling of the foods in the final tray returns us to the central question of this chapter, about how many of the foods at a banquet were meant to be eaten. Given the directions for flavoring the dishes on the final tray, it appears that they were to be consumed. By the same logic, the lack of directions for other dishes on the other trays, notably the heron on the second tray and the cold soup and additional serving of rice on the third tray, leaves open the possibility that these were decorative dishes.
Fortunately, guests could rely on other culinary cues to determine whether foods were meant to be eaten or not. The first cue was the point when these foods appeared in a banquet. For instance, the snacks (sakana) served in the “ceremony of the three rounds of drinks” (shikisankon) that preceded formal banquets included several items that could not be consumed. The second cue regarding edibility was the physical appearance of the foods.
The “ceremony of the three rounds of drinks,” shikisankon, provides an example of the culinary rules that imparted transcendent qualities to food to enhance guests’ aesthetic appreciation of it and to provoke contemplation of its symbolic qualities. While the custom of drinking sake in Japan had long been an important means to celebrate new and old relationships, elite warriors in the Muromachi period developed that practice into the ceremony of the shikisankon. But it was actually the snacks accompanying the drinks that carried the most symbolic meaning.54 Each of the three rounds of sake was accompanied by snacks (sakana) that were not meant to be eaten, but which did have important significations they imparted, like magical talismans, on the participants of the shikisankon. Consequently, our main focus in the following description of shikisankon, derived from Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House and other sources, is on the importance of these inedible foods in differentiating cuisine from ordinary food and its preparation and consumption.55 Cuisine was a practice of conspicuous nonconsumption.
João Rodriguez, a keen observer of social customs among the samurai elite, describes the importance of drinking wine (i.e., sake) as a ritual to cement relationships:
Among the Japanese . . . the first and chief courtesy and token of interior love and friendship is the [sake cup] sakazuki; this is to entertain with wine, and two or more persons drink alternatively from the same cup as a sign of uniting their hearts into one or their two souls into one. They use this entertaining with both people drinking wine from the same cup first of all as a token of courtesy and friendship; hence if a person does not wish to accept the cup from which the other has drunk, it is taken as a sign of enmity and of his not wishing to be friendly. On the other hand this is done when two enemies are reconciled; both drink from the same cup from which one of them has drunk, and they pass it to each other as a sign of reconciliation and union of hearts. Secondly, it is performed when they make a conspiracy, alliance or promise which must be fulfilled at all costs; they also do this when they take oaths of loyalty to each other, sometimes mixing in the wine some drops of blood which both draw by pricking their finger, and then both drink the wine mixed with blood.56
By sharing the same cup, the host and guest renewed their relationship or a married couple began theirs, since a similar ceremony of sipping from the same cup was used for weddings.
Shikisankon means “three rounds (kon) of drinking sake.” Each round consisted of draining a shallow cup (sakazuki) of sake three times.57 Thus, performing the “ceremony of three rounds” required drinking three cups of sake three times, or nine shallow cups of sake total. Each cup contained little more than a mouthful, allowing the event to retain its formality without degenerating into a drinking contest.58
Each of the three rounds of drinks included snacks to accompany the sake. It has been suggested that the word for “snack,” sakana, indicates that the foods originally served with the sake (saka) were vegetables (na), that later these snacks became prepared meats like fish and seafood.59 The origin of the word for “menu” (kondate), which dates to the first culinary text by hchnin, namely, the 1489 Shij School Text, is as a list of foods to accompany drinks. Or, as Shsekiken Sken, the author of a culinary book published in 1730, indicated, a menu was the “plan for the rounds of drinks.”60 From the Muromachi period onward, typical shikisankon snacks included pickled apricots (umeboshi), abalone, konbu seaweed, dried chestnuts (kachiguri), and dried squid. All these foods have important symbolic meanings.
Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House offers diagrams of two trays for shikisankon.61 Figure 6 reveals three cups, stacked on top of one another, one for each round of drinks, accompanied by other foods. Unlike the banquet trays that would be served individually to each guest, there was one common tray bearing the sake cups and snacks for all the guests to use.62 Sharing the same cup allowed for the “union of hearts,” to recall Rodrigues’s words.
In contrast to the rest of the meal, which presented a variety of different dishes in a unique combination, the composition of the shikisankon was standard, allowing us to reference an illustration from an early Edo period culinary text, which is nearly identical to the version in Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House. Accompanying the sake cups in that illustration are, clockwise from the top, five strips of dried konbu seaweed, five dried chestnuts, and five strips of dried abalone, all on pieces of white paper.63 Excepting the number of konbu, which numbered only two pieces in the version in Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House, this Edo period painting of a shikisankon is practically identical, for these snacks were typical of those served for shikisankon in the Muromachi and Edo periods.64 All these foods share the distinct characteristic that none of them could be consumed when served in this form. Since these were dried foods, they would have to be soaked in water before they were eaten, and the process would take several hours at minimum. The dried chestnuts, for instance, would have to be soaked overnight before being simmered to make them edible.65 Konbu still is the chief ingredient for making stock, prepared by placing the seaweed in boiling water, but unless it is cooked, dried konbu is too tough to eat. The dried abalone could not be eaten until it was soaked in water and then steamed, boiled, or eaten raw, or cut into small pieces to be used as a flavoring.
FIGURE 6. Shokon hikiwatashi (shikisankon), from Scroll of Seven Trays and Nineteen Rounds of Drinks (Shichi no zen j
ky kon no maki), Edo period. Courtesy of Mankamer.
Since the shikisankon snacks could not be eaten, they were included for the symbolic values derived from their names. Konbu seaweed, often called kobu, as it is in Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House, brought to mind the word happiness (yorokobu). The abalone was dried, pounded flat, and cut into long slices. Transforming a shellfish best eaten raw into a dried, flat form not only preserved it and allowed it to be eaten in places that, like Kyoto, were removed from the ocean, but it also added important symbolic meanings and some interesting visual puns. Since it could be stretched out, abalone promised an extended lifespan. Dried abalone was also a military food, probably because, as a preserved food, it could be easily taken on a campaign. The word for abalone in this form was noshi awabi, or simply noshi as it was used in Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House, a word that also meant “victory.” When the same preparation was called “flattened abalone,” uchi awabi, the words conjured up the idea that one would “smite”(utte) one’s enemies. These meanings made abalone an auspicious gift for warriors. Dried abalone was often used as a decoration on gifts, a custom preserved today in the designs on gift envelopes and the wrapping paper used by many Japanese department stores called “abalone-paper” (noshigami). Like the names of these other foods, the word for dried chestnuts (kachiguri)—made from mountain chestnuts (sasaguri) that were first dried, then roasted, and then pounded in a mortar to remove the astringent skin—was a homonym. Kachi not only meant dried but also meant victory.66
Martial associations with the shikisankon snacks may date to as early as the Heian period, when warriors were toasted with sake and snacks on festival days and before going into battle.67 Flattened abalone was one of the snacks served to accompany drinking at the annual New Year’s feast hosted by the Kamakura bakufu for retainers (gokenin).68 The sixteenth-century culinary text Transcript of Lord kusa’s Oral Instructions includes a pithy statement about the military symbolism of the chestnuts, abalone, and konbu, respectively: “On departing for battle, smiting [utte], winning [katte], and rejoicing [yorokobu] are joined together.” The same text notes later: “On returning from battle, winning, smiting, and rejoicing are joined together.”69 This indicates the order in which these snacks were to be handled to ensure their felicitous properties at drinking ceremonies either before departing for a battle or after returning from one. The 1714 publication Complete Manual of Cuisine of Our School (Try setsuy ryri taizen) expounds further on these associations: “Kobu is the widest of all seaweeds; since it is so large, it is auspicious. Dried chestnuts are felicitous due to their association with the word victory. It is said that there was a hermit named Tnansei who collected and ate these and lived seven hundred years.”70
When other snacks were used for shikisankon, these too had important symbolic meanings. Dried squid (surume) suggested the word suehirogari, meaning “enjoying increased prosperity.” Dried bonito flakes (katsuo bushi), also used to make soup stock and as a flavoring, evoked the same word for victory (katsu) as dried chestnuts.71 Like the other shikisankon snacks, these, too, were dried foods; but unlike them they could be consumed immediately.72
The inedible snacks of the shikisankon are analogous to the sculptures of marzipan, lard, and sugar called “subtleties” that graced royal banquets in thirteenth-century Europe. Anthropologist Sidney Mintz has described these as “message-bearing objects that could be used to make a special point.”73 In both contexts, the presence of such culinary symbols bespoke martial prowess and political authority. The only difference is that the Japanese did not eat their symbols, and this gave them greater transcendence, allowing their properties to endure longer by virtue of not being consumed. Indeed, that warriors participating in the shikisankon did not consume these foods, but instead secreted them on their persons as if they were protective amulets, deserves note for being not only a way for the foods to outlast the banquets but also a way for their bearers to enjoy the martial qualities of these snacks and persevere in any challenge they might encounter. João Rodrigues notes that, at formal New Year’s celebrations, konbu, chestnuts, dried squid, and other foods that “indicate a good omen” were served to guests, but that these were not consumed. Instead, “everybody takes one or two grains [of food] with two fingers of his right hand and puts them in his mouth, or at least pretends to put them there without actually doing so.”74 The sixteenth-century hchnin text Transcript of Lord kusa’s Oral Instructions, too, indicates that guests should mime eating the snacks and discreetly tuck them into a sleeve or fold of a kimono (kaich): “Take the second strand of flattened abalone from the front and bring it up to your mouth, and then tuck it away into your pocket.” After pouring sake into the top cup and taking three drinks, the guest took up the second sake cup and chose the middle of the five chestnuts; this he also mimed eating before secreting it away like the abalone. The instructions for handling the konbu were similar. As noted earlier, the drinker took up these snacks in the order in which they would be most important to a samurai in battle, signifying that he would go forth and smite the enemy (noshi, abalone), be victorious (katsu, chestnuts), and celebrate (kobu, konbu).
Guidebooks to etiquette published in the Edo period disseminated the procedure for handling shikisankon snacks so that commoners became aware of these practices. One of the earliest of these texts was Treasury for Women (Onna chhki), a popular compendium on behavior and general knowledge for women by Namura Jhaku (1674–1748) first published in 1692. Jhaku’s text reveals that commoners had adopted the shikisankon for wedding ceremonies but still needed guidance about what to do with the snacks. He writes, “The groom and bride consume the three rounds of drinks [shikisankon],” but, “they should only pretend to eat the food.”75 Another guidebook, Chastity Bookstore House for Teaching Women Loyalty (Onna chky misao bunko), published in 1801, provides women with more explicit instructions about what to do with the snacks: “Delicacies [sakana] one should receive with the hands, and take them while folding a nose [blowing] paper, put [the delicacies] inside [the paper], place [the latter on the floor] at one’s side, and take it along at the time one stands up.”76 Edo-period commoners employed shikisankon for occasions other than weddings, too, such as the first formal meeting of a client and a high-ranking courtesan, so it became a custom used for many different purposes.77
In contrast to the inedible symbols used in the shikisankon, a second tray of tasty dishes, meant to be eaten as an accompaniment for further drinking, is depicted in Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House.78 Muromachi-period records indicate that as many as seventeen additional rounds of drinks could follow the conclusion of the shikisankon.79 However, edible foods were served only after the third or fifth round of drinks. Longer drinking bouts would have necessitated that participants have something to eat, both to stimulate further drinking and to ensure that they did not pass out from having too much alcohol in their empty stomachs. The formality of the initial shikisankon would have also been difficult to maintain after so many rounds of drinks, adding another reason why the drinkers might have been inclined to consume the snacks they were served.
The illustration of the second tray in Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House (not reproduced here) shows five dishes, three small dishes further away from the guest and two larger ones closer. The former include:
Fish cake (kamaboko) |
Turbot (sazae) |
Potato bulbs on skewers (nukago sashi) |
A notation explains that three or five servings of fish cake should be served. A separate note explained that three or five potato bulbs should be served, so the portions of these foods were probably meant to correspond to one another. The ingredients of the fish cake are not specified, but fish cake can be made from any fish mashed into a paste. The paste is then thickened with a starch, dyed, and modeled into a shape.80 The potato bulbs (also called mukago) are small growths that appear on yam vines, rather than small potatoes. Shij School Text indicates that, when kamaboko and potato bulbs on skewers were served together, they should be accompanied by small pieces of paper used to hold them while eating, called kisoku (literally “turtles’ feet”), the design of which should suit the rank of the guest.81 Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House also provides possible substitutions for the turbot if it was unavailable: “fermented sea cumber intestines [konowata] or blue crab [gazame, also called gazami].” Konowata was an especially esteemed dish, one of the top three delicacies of the Edo period.82
The two larger dishes on the tray were:
Separate rice (wake no meshi) |
Cold soup (hiyashiru)83 |
Recall that the honzen menu also had a notation for a dish of “separate rice” served with cold soup. The dish appears to be characteristic of Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House but atypical of most honzen banquets, which restricted rice to the main tray. Unfortunately, the annotations do not provide further clarification. As noted earlier, cold soups were a staple of Muromachi-period banquets, though less popular in the Edo period. The ingredients in the one here are unspecified, so it could be a decorative dish, but Shij School Text contains a recipe for one made from oysters and sea cucumber that sounds tasty enough to eat.84 As before, the soup could also be meant as a sauce for the rice.
After the initial drinking session, the party adjourned to another room to begin the honzen banquet. When a Muromachi shogun paid a formal visitation (onari) to a vassal or a religious institution, the shikisankon was a relatively private affair that occurred in a small room featuring Chinese art objects. The banquet that followed occurred in a larger room called the hiroma.85
The second indication of whether something could be eaten at a honzen banquet was the appearance of the dish itself. Writing about earlier forms of banqueting (i.e., before the rise to power of Oda Nobunaga in the late 1560s), João Rodrigues explains that banquets of three, five, and seven trays often had many dishes that were not meant to be consumed: “In these banquets many of the dishes were served on plates in the form of pyramids neatly arranged with their corners as in the Chinese fashion, and it was from China that they derived their origin; but they were served only for decoration and were there to be looked at and not eaten.”86 The type of presentation that Rodrigues described is known by the generic term high serving (takamori), a way of serving food that dated back to at least the Heian period and indeed originated in China. One theory holds that this pile of food symbolized the mountain home of a Chinese immortal, but medieval and early modern sources provide other interpretations.87
Takamori measured approximately fifteen to eighteen centimeters in height and were found at some of the most elaborate banquets for the aristocratic and samurai elite of the Muromachi and Edo periods. When we consider the definition of cuisine (ryri) as denoting more that simply a style of cooking, as including the way in which food could be appreciated intellectually and artistically, takamori played an important role in Japan’s culinary history by adding visual and symbolic depth to banquets, thereby differentiating these occasions from ordinary meals lacking these special dishes. The special function of takamori in the artistic and intellectual appreciation of a meal was confirmed by the fact that takamori were created especially for their decorative and symbolic purposes and were not meant to be eaten.
Culinary historians tsubo Fujiyo and Akiyama Teruko, who have researched the history of takamori, indicate that these types of servings were derived from earlier customs of religious offerings. It is still a custom today at some shrines and temples to offer fruits, nuts, and other foods piled in high offerings to the deities and Buddhas. tsubo and Akiyama indicate this mode of serving was incorporated in honzen banquets for imperial rituals. For example, the emperor was presented with a ceremonial meal on the second day of the new year called daishjinomono, and another the next day for a long-life ritual called “tooth strengthening” (ohagatame), reflecting the idea that healthy teeth are important for a long lifespan. The emperor ate neither of these trays of food, which were served in the takamori style. According to a late Heian-period description of the imperial ohagatame rite, Collection of Illustrated Guidelines for Miscellaneous Procedures (Ruij zatsuysh sashizu), foods served takamori style included separate plates stacked with slices of venison, wild boar, sea bream, carp, and whole raw vegetables (see plate 3).88 Instead of even trying to eat these foods, the emperor merely tapped the tray with his chopsticks. Directions for this procedure appear in Annual Rites of the Kemmu Era (Kemmu nench gyji), which dates from 1330: “Remove the chopsticks from the tray, or pretend to remove them, and signify that you have eaten by making a noise with the chopsticks.”89 It appears that the use of food in ceremonies—whether an offering to deities and Buddhas or an offering used in a longevity ritual for the emperor—required that it not be eaten; and arranging it in a “high serving” marked the food for this purpose.
Other modes of service likewise marked dishes as being for ceremonial or display purposes rather than for consumption, and the use of these extended beyond the court. tsubo and Akiyama supply an example by citing a banquet menu for a New Year’s celebration served in the Hosokawa warrior house in the Hreki period (1751–64), as described by one of its descendants, Hosokawa Morisada (1912–2005).90 The same New Year’s meal was served for several consecutive days and consisted of three trays with five, five, and three side dishes, respectively:
Main Tray
Sea bream serving (taimori)
Small sea bream
Soup
Fish salad (kake namasu)
Serving of pickles (k no mono)
Sardines
Rice
Second Tray
Dried squid “cluster serving” (surume fusamori)
Yellowtail “corner serving” (buri kadomori)
Spiral shellfish (hashi)91
Soup “
Green moss” stew (aogoke fukume)92
Pheasant serving (kiji mori)
Spiny lobster in the shape of a boat (ebi [no] funamori)
Whale cleat-wood serving (kujira sangi mori)
Duck wing serving (kamo hamori)
The dishes called “servings” (mori), and a few others here, were not meant to be eaten. Hosokawa states this clearly in reference to the menu: “It was customary to have some things that would not be touched: on the main tray, the sea bream serving, the serving of pickles, and the sardines; on the second tray, the dried squid cluster serving, the spiral shellfish, and the pheasant serving; and on the third tray, the spiny lobster in the shape of a boat, the whale cleat-wood serving, and the duck wing serving were not meant for eating, but were a type of decoration that one did not touch with chopsticks, according to custom.” (See plate 4.) It seems only the soups, the rice, and a few other things could be consumed. The foods that had been consumed would have to be replaced with every meal, but the decorative dishes could be reused for several days in a row.93 After surveying similar Edo period banquets for the warrior elite, tsubo and Akiyama conclude that “trays with high servings are best considered to be decorations exhibiting opulence rather than food.”94
However, the issue of serving style is more complicated than the single term high serving (takamori) suggests. In the aforementioned example the dishes are not described as high servings: the word mori is instead a suffix attached to certain words denoting them as “servings.” Moreover, the term high serving does not appear as a significant category or descriptive term in hchnin culinary texts. Instead, these texts indicate that there are two categories of servings. The first category was decorative dishes called servings (mori), akin to those in the previous menu for the Hosokawa family.95 This mode of serving highlighted the principle ingredient by presenting it in a creative way, such as “spiny lobster in the shape of a boat” (ebi [no] funamori). Since these came in a variety of shapes, high serving is a misnomer, especially since hchnin used more specific terms. The second category describes the abstract shapes that pieces of foods could be sculpted into. Physically these were “high servings,” measuring about half a foot in height, but hchnin again used more specific and poetic terms to describe them. In contrast to the first type of serving—which emphasized naturalistic depictions of ingredients as culinary sculpture, for example, by adding feathered wings to a cooked duck (kamo hamori) to make it appear as if it might fly away—the second category of servings evoked more abstract interpretations farther removed from the meanings of the actual foods themselves. Each category must be evaluated if we are to understand that, in defining a cuisine, Japan’s elite food culture placed as much emphasis on decoration and symbolism as it did on cooking and eating.
The first category of dishes called servings required considerable effort to produce their visual effects, according to medieval culinary texts. Transcript of Lord kusa’s Oral Instructions described them as “things that require skill” to create.96 Decorative servings appear to be a characteristic of culinary texts, since they do not figure prominently in published culinary books written for a popular audience. The latter are more concerned with how foods should be combined (moriawase), as opposed to the appearance of the dishes when they are served, which was the focus of hchnins’ culinary texts.97
Ryri no sho provides some lucid descriptions of several decorative dishes, including “natural crab serving” (kani no onomori), “abalone shell-serving” (awabi no iemori), and “wing serving” (hamori):
Kasame means crab [kani]. Served with chopsticks, paper wrapping [kisoku], and colorful ribbons [mizuhiki]. A gold ribbon is attached and tied in the shape of a dragonfly . . . . The ideal way to serve this is to create a natural appearance, like it is alive and crawling. This is called “serving a natural crab [kani no onomori].”
. . . For abalone shell serving [awabi no iemori], attach streamers [shibe] to the abalone, then as a base attach seven or nine “waves” made from paper of five colors cut into round pieces; place the abalone on top. It is fine to serve the abalone [whole] in this fashion or to slice it with a knife. This is the greatest accomplishment of a chef. It is not appropriate to use decorative skewers for this dish.
. . . Regarding wing servings [hamori] and the decorative setting for them—it is best to prepare these as one usually does. When they are brought into a room, point the dish itself to the right, but the wings on it to the left. It is best to serve this on an ornamental box or on the type of table used for religious offerings. There are many oral secrets about this.98
These descriptions share a common focus on the appearance of the dish, how it should be decorated and served. The middle part of the passage on “wing serving” refers to the proper display of the bird, usually a duck or a quail, at a banquet. In the hamori serving style, the feathered wings of the bird are reattached after the bird is cooked, giving the appearance that the cooked bird might revive and fly away. The preceding descriptions reveal the attempt to present food in a lifelike way, like a flying bird or a crawling crab, but at the same time they are concerned with ornamentation, indicated by the use of streamers and colorful paper. It is understandable why the text Transcript of Lord kusa’s Oral Instructions noted that they required skill, because they are all spectacle pieces showcasing the chef’s art.
Another dish, “spiny lobster in the shape of a boat” (ebi no funamori) is mentioned alongside these decorative dishes in Ryri no sho, and it appears frequently in other culinary texts. Shij School Text indicates that it “is a major culinary work. This should be restricted to only one aristocrat [at a banquet], everyone else should receive just split spiny lobster instead.”99 Hch kikigaki indicates that information about this dish is among the “oral secrets.”100 The entry from Ryri no sho also references oral secrets but discloses some details:
Spiny lobster served in a boat shape (ebi no funamori) is the spiny lobster from Kamakura. The shell is opened, and the meat is served upon it. Raise the feelers up like a ship’s masts, and stand the legs off to the sides. Make sure that the serving tray for this is carefully prepared. It is best served with painted decorations on it in silver and gold. It is best if the serving tray has a foot to it. There are oral secrets.101
If any dishes qualify as decorative artwork, it would be the preceding ones set off on special trays and with silver and gold ornaments to draw further attention to them.
Even more remarkable is the fact that there was a special moment in the banquet set aside to appreciate the artistic qualities of these servings, as indicated in the description in Transcript of Lord kusa’s Oral Instructions of the proper way to handle a “wing serving of quail meat” (uzura no habushi mori). The passage indicates that the dish was ultimately consumed, but not until it was painstakingly appreciated.
The quail is not eaten during the course of the banquet. Once the banquet is over, when the sake containers appear and the guests have assumed more comfortable seating positions, seeing that the sake has been passed three times around the room, take up the stand bearing the quail in your right hand and then your left. Gaze at it as if you are peering under the bird’s left wing. Then replace the bird in its original position with the beak facing you. Use your right hand and remove the flowers that have been placed inside the bird. With your left hand take hold of the bird as if you were going to examine it a little. First appreciate the flowers. Then remove the flowers and place them between the main table and the second one at the edge of the tatami mat in front of them. Take up the stand for the quail in your right hand and place this as well on the tatami in front of the second tray on your right. Bring your left hand and then your right in front of it making a short bow. Place your left hand on the stand bearing the quail, and use the right hand to remove some of the meat on the left side of the quail, placing it on the stand. There is a significant amount of meat inside, so use your right hand to remove the meat served on the bird and place it on the wings. Next, again pick up the stand in the right hand and place it in the left hand. Take a long appreciative look at it. Return the stand to the right hand, and place it in front of the main table. Now, remove the delicacies from the wings with your right hand and place them on your left hand. Enjoy them with your right hand. These can be consumed while the sake is being served. Finally, when hot water is being served, use your chopsticks to remove any remaining meat that stands out from the wings and place it on the main table, and use your right hand to cover the quail with its wings. Pick up the flowers with your left hand and offer a few words of praise about them, smell them, and then tuck them into your pocket.102
This was a dish meant to be savored in more ways than one, from enjoying the color and fragrance of the flowers decorating it, to appreciating the shape of the wings, to ultimately tasting the meat, eating it with one’s hands. The diner’s ceremonial observation of the dish and his bowing to it are reminiscent of the opening of the tea ceremony, when guests kneel before the utensils to admire them before the host enters the room. Though the chef was also absent from the banquet, the products of his labors were present, and the aforementioned rules indicate that they were meant to be painstakingly admired. The same text provides similar directions for appreciating spiny lobster served in a boat shape. Before it was consumed, the lobster was held aloft “with the utmost feeling of appreciation for it.”103
Given the complexity of the rules for eating these servings, it is easy to imagine that guests might not make an attempt to eat them, especially since they would do so only after having consumed several trays of food during the banquet proper. Some guests might even find a whole cooked bird with its feathered wings reattached too intimidating, especially if the chef had really given the bird the appearance that it might at any moment fly away. These reasons help us understand why the wing serving and lobster in a boat shape listed on the Hosokawa banquet menu cited earlier were not eaten. There would have been other snacks available during the postbanquet drinking session in case guests wanted something to eat without the difficulties associated with attempting to consume one of these display dishes.
The second type of decorative serving is characterized by the way the foods were served piled in high-serving style (takamori). Shij-House Decorations for 7-5-3 Trays (Shijke shichigosan no kazarikata) is a short writing covering the appropriate banquet settings for weddings, which it refers to as “banquet trays” (ky no zen), and it includes illustrations of these. One set of illustrations is for a five-tray banquet, and this exemplifies how the high-serving style gave new meanings to familiar foods. Unlike the trays served for a usual honzen banquet, the first two of the five banquet trays here lack soups, providing one clue that they were not meant to be consumed. However, the main clue was provided in the shape of the dishes.
The main banquet tray (honky) contains dishes in several different serving styles, and one of these dishes is squid in a “decorative serving” (uzumori). Hch kikigaki defines decorative serving (also called usumori) as “rolled, dried squid” (maki surume).104 This is a recipe for flat, dried squid tightly rolled up and then cut into circular pieces that could be bent into decorative shapes such as butterflies. These were a typical ornamentation for wedding banquets, because butterflies represented the couple’s future happiness together.105 In the case of Shij-House Decorations for 7-5-3 Trays, the dried squid is shaped into what looks like two different types of stylized flowers, rather than butterflies, on either side of the near corners of the main tray (see plate 5).
Turning to the other items on the main tray, the large circle in the middle is rice, requisite for the main tray. The book’s reference to “cranelike” (tsuru y) could be to a soup, because soup is missing; however, soup is also missing from another illustration of a main tray in the same text, and that same illustration includes a figure of a crane in that location, one of a pair of small figurines on either side of the chopsticks. So the reference here is probably to a small, inedible model of a crane. Cranes were associated with long life, as legend held that they lived for a thousand years; consequently, cranes were popular motifs in wedding decorations. A salt-cellar is also mentioned, but not drawn in its location to the right of the chopsticks. Other drawings in the same text pair the salt with a small container of ginger (shga) on the other side of the chopsticks.106 Both were condiments. The scale of the image is hard to judge, but the chopsticks lying in a small rest are quite large relative to the size of the tray and other dishes. In this respect they are similar to the long chopsticks for the deity’s use that are added to food offerings at Shinto shrines, providing further indication that these foods were not meant to be eaten.
The remaining five dishes on the main banquet tray have a special significance as a group, especially because of their colors. The middle dish is identified as shaved abalone (kezurimono noshi), one among five such dishes of “shredded things” (kezurimono) that customarily formed a set. The set here also includes: sea bream belly (tai tori), sea bass, sea eel (hamu or hamo), and some type of fowl (tori), probably pheasant, served with a paper decoration (kisoku).107 The colors of these five dishes are well known, although colors are not indicated in the text. Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House provides the colors and their locations: “The five varieties of shredded things [kezurimono] are served as follows. The same [format] is true throughout the year.”
Red |
|
White |
|
Black |
|
Yellow |
|
Green108 |
Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House does not explain what the five dishes are, but indicates that they are approximately 1.5 to 1.8 centimeters in height (five to six bu), indicating that they are low plates of food, the miniature versions of high servings. Ise Sadatake details the kezurimono used in the kusa culinary school, providing their respective colors and some other details.
The five varieties of shredded things in the kusa school are: green—dried shark [sametari]; yellow—flattened abalone [noshi awabi]; red—dried bonito [katsuo bushi]; white—dried conger eel [gongiri]; and black—dried sea cucumber [iriko]. These five things are thinly sliced and made into a decorative isle of the immortals [tekake ni moru]. They are added to the tray with the rice-cake soup [zni]. They are presented on a turtle’s shell, which is a six sided tray.109
The significance of the five-color combination (goshiki) is well known. It appears frequently in artistic motifs, including on the curtain separating the backstage area from the Noh stage. According to yin-yang theory (onmyd), the five colors are associated with the five agents. White represents sunlight and yang, and black stands for darkness and yin. The remaining three colors, green, red, and yellow, represent wood, fire, and earth, respectively, indicating that the white and black also represent the remaining two elements, metal and water. Five-agent theory opens up a universe of interpretations for these foods, since each one was associated not only with a color but also with a direction, a season, a taste, and an internal organ, to name just a few associations.110
Another exploration of the wealth of meanings of the kezurimono is found in Secret Writings:
The serving of sea bream is oceans and male; the serving of sea bass is rivers and female. The bird is mountain and male; the taro in the shape of a pinecone [matsukasa] is female. The sea squirt [hoya] serving and the refined sea salt are male; the rolled dried squid [uzumori] is river water and female. The geography of the kezurimono represents the country. And the country that is represented is none other than Japan.111
The interweaving of protonationalist sentiment with gender almost suggests the description is by a twenty-first-century semiotician, not the author of an early-seventeenth-century culinary text. The fanciful interpretation takes some liberties, since the sea salt and rolled squid were not part of the kezurimono set. However, this fault does not diminish the inventiveness of this particular fantasy with food.
The “pinecone serving” (matsukasa mori), mentioned above, describes the shape of the piles of kezurimono, just as uzumori indicates a way to serve the squid. Secret Writings states that the taro is in the shape of the pinecone. However, in the illustration from Shij-House Decorations for 7-5-3 Trays (see plate 5), all the kezurimono are in that shape: narrow at the bottom and broad at the top.
On the second tray in this text (and others), the serving style is called “cypress serving” (sugimori). The name indicates not only a mode of serving the dishes on the tray (specifically the rice in the circle) but also a designation for the entire tray. If the fish salad (namasu) can be taken as indicative, in the pinecone serving the top flares out, but in the cypress serving it comes to a point at the top. These two modes were said to represent different genders, according to Secret Writings: “The pine of the main table is male, and the pine of the cypress serving is a female.” The text goes on to say that the pines on the respective trays also represent the Hachiman and Kasuga deities and longevity, as “the pine is a prayer for a thousand years of blessings.”112 A reference to Zeami’s Noh play Takasago, about the enduring love of the spirits of two pine trees for one another, may have been too obvious a reference for the author to include, since singing passages from the play at weddings was a custom dating to at least the sixteenth century, and it had been a typical motif for wedding decorations since that time.
Like the rice on the second tray, the fish salad (namasu) is in a cypress serving. It occupies the central point in a visual repetition of the kezurimono from the first tray, which includes dried conger eel (gongiri) in the top right corner, fowl (probably pheasant) with serving paper (tori kisoku) below that, dried squid in a corner shape (kakumori surume) in the left top, and “yam basket” (imogomi) below that. The directions for creating this dish are partially missing, but the “yam basket” is made from yams (imo) mixed with rice flour, which is then wrapped in konbu seaweed, simmered in miso, and sliced into small pieces. Another rice cake (mochi) dish occupies the bottom left corner, and an unnamed whole fish, probably a carp, rests in the bottom right one.113 Felicitous decorations of a tortoise (kame) and crane (tsuru) are indicated but not drawn, along with a serving of salt (shio).
In addition to dishes in the pinecone and cypress serving styles, Transcript of Lord kusa’s Oral Instructions offers a recipe for abalone served in the pine needle style (awabi matsuba mori):
Spread cypress needles in the middle of a shell, place citron leaves on top of that, make a depression on top, and then flatten the abalone on top of that. The serving height is about 15 centimeters [5 sun]. The [proper] serving style is to have it gradually taper at the top.114
The dish might derive its name from the cypress needles included, but since it measures fifteen centimeters or nearly half a foot, it is clearly a form of high serving, which, like the cypress serving, tapers at the top.
As noted earlier, Ise Sadatake offers a different geographical explanation of the five kezurimono, claiming they represented a “decorative island of immortals” (tekake), also called hrai island. The story of an island of immortals is, like the mountain of immortals described earlier, Chinese in origin, and it remains an auspicious decorative device for banquets at New Year’s celebrations and wedding ceremonies in Japan. And on both occasions, it is usually admired but not consumed.115 Modern versions have a variety of small treats tucked under a model of a pine tree on a suhama dais (also called a shimadai), a short table that resembles an island because of its wavy shape; this makes it easier to imagine it representing the immortals’ paradise (see plate 6). How the five kezurimono in a banquet represent the island of immortals requires more imagination, but if one can envision that the dishes represent Japan, then an island of immortals is not a far step away. Rather than end the discussion, Ise and other food writers open up interpretations for dishes, facilitating inventive ways to think about them.
NI : EATING THE KING OF DEMONSBefore I conclude the discussion of message-bearing foods at honzen banquets, zni, a soup made from rice cake and other delicacies, warrants a short examination. In his description of the five kezurimono, Ise notes the addition of zni on the same tray. Culinary Text of the Yamanouchi House also includes zni as an accompaniment to the kezurimono, and it was often served as snack to accompany the three ceremonial rounds of drinks (shikisankon).116 zni remains to this day a customary food for New Year’s celebrations, usually eaten on the fourth day. However, the medieval and early modern interpretations of zni seem largely to have been forgotten.
The word zni, meaning “a variety of simmered things,” dates from the fourteenth century, and the recipes for it are varied, but all use a rice cake (mochi) as the central ingredient.117 Guide to Meals for the Tea Ceremony (Cha no yu kondate shinan), published in 1696, provides the following recipe for zni:
For zni, put grilled tofu in the bottom, with daikon layered on top. Place two rice cakes cut into squares on top of one another, and skewered abalone, dried abalone cut into strips and tied together, abalone, konbu, dried chestnut, and small fish on skewers on top of the rice cake. Place these seven items together and simmer in seasoned miso.118
Although abalone is used three times, the different methods of preparation for it allow the author to count each version as a separate ingredient.
A variety of ingredients was important in making zni and for the symbolic meaning of the dish. The Complete Manual of Cuisine of Our School (Try setsuy ryri taizen), published in 1714, attributes special significance to the ingredients of this dish, which it glosses as “simmered organs,” based on a homonym for the word zni. The “simmered organs” belong to none other than the King of Demons (Ma).119
The zni is arranged to model the five organs of the King of Demons. The heart of fire is red. Bonito, which represents this, rests at the bottom. The spleen is yellow, the color of earth. Abalone on skewers is made to resemble the lungs. The liver is green like a tree. A gourd [manakotsume] is cut long and round. The lungs are metal and white. The rice cake courses with energy. The kidneys are water and black.120
In this meandering and mystical description, the overall associations between foods and demonic organs in zni is clear, as is the connection between food and the five colors and five agents noted earlier in the description of the kezurimono. Late-seventeenth-century tea master End Genkan includes a similar interpretation of zni, but he adds a note of caution: “According to one interpretation, zni symbolizes the organs of the King of Demons, and this explanation holds that it works a type of magic, but such assertions are dubious.”121 Nevertheless, End, who liked to write in great detail, included this reference, explaining that some believed consuming the dish provided magical power, aiding the body against demonic influences. Even though End might not subscribe to such ideas, they could still amuse him. Consequently, though the zni might not actually give anyone magical powers, it does exemplify how food, when prepared according to culinary rules, took on the ability to provoke intellectual activity and aesthetic appreciation.
In medieval and early modern Japan, the custom of not eating prepared dishes served at a banquet was a way to highlight symbolic meanings of foods and to produce and accrue other qualities from them. Actually eating one of the snacks served with a ceremonial rounds of drinks would have been a social blunder, and it would have been nearly impossible to do, given the form of the foods served. The same was true of other banquets foods that appeared in preserved form, piled into pyramids, or molded in decorative servings resembling sculpture. Through their skills, hchnin transformed foods already laden with symbolic meanings into dishes that, by virtue of their shapes and their appearance at certain moments of a banquet, reinforced their symbolic importance, overriding their simple nutritional and gustatory qualities—as illustrated by the examples of a spiny lobster served in the shape of a boat, the crawling crab, and the quail presented with its feathered wings. The rules for transforming foods into symbols were codified by hchnin serving the court and high-ranking samurai in the late medieval period. Through publication of texts such as Secret Writings and Complete Manual of Cuisine of Our School from the mid-seventeenth century onward, and the subsequent works that borrowed from these books, the rules became more widely known. Today some vestiges of this cuisine are preserved in the more conservative wedding banquets and in ceremonial foods like zni eaten at New Year’s celebrations. More important, these customs served as an inspiration for viewing food in its raw and prepared forms as something other than simply food—as a cuisine having artistic, moral, and emotional resonance.122
