IT IS USEFUL to proceed by looking at a central food event – a meal – from which we can expand the discussion to other food events as well. Every food event, like all evanescent art forms, differs from any other, but, notwithstanding this difference, there are categorical similarities which can be pursued. There are a number of types of food event within Japanese society”. That is an acceptable scholarly way to say that Japanese, as anyone else, eat in different contexts and on different occasions. We can however identify at least one core event – a meal – defined as a food event that has a regular appearance (or is expected to) in the life of any average individual, and which is both expected and necessary. In modern Japan, most people eat three main meals a day, though this has only fairly recently in this century become a norm, and in practical terms is true for almost all Japanese only since the post-war period.
A breakfast we had in the summer of 1996 exemplifies some of the issues.
Jeanne had a Western breakfast. Michael, Japanese. Both were served on lacquered trays while we looked out over the hotel’s small garden. Jeanne’s breakfast consisted of coffee, orange juice, two thick toast slices, two fried eggs that had been liberally peppered, two slices of grilled ham resting on slices of lettuce. A quarter of a grapefruit rested on a small round plate with two grapes on top. Each grape had been sliced so that it had a flat base, and the top had been peeled into a flower shape, exposing the pulp. There were two pals of butler, and three containers of jam. The waiter served the coffee from a coffee-pot. Talking it over later, we noted that the waiter was careful to pour the coffee deliberately with a flourish, and to pour no more than two thirds of a cup
Michael’s Japanese breakfast was in effect standard. A teapot held green tea for a ceramic handle-less tea-cup. A slice of grilled salted salmon rested on a small bamboo leaf on one side of a lacquered black plate. A covered lacquered container held steamed white rice, the slotted top of the container supporting a plastic rice paddle for moving the rice to the small, plain, tenmoku ware chawan (rice bowl). A black, punt-shaped container bore a transparent plastic-wrapped oblong of several sheets of nori. A larger round plate, garnished with a green bamboo leaf held takuan (radish bran pickle), two slices of kamaboko (fish paste), and two small pieces of sweet omelette.
It is immediately apparent that the meal is intended to be eaten simultaneously, that is, unlike the European meal in which one course follows another, all the food to be consumed appears on the table at once. True,. this may be a feature of the fact that this is a hotel meal, and breakfast at that, but as we shall see presently, it is in general often true of Japanese meals that they arc consumed as single tray meals or a variation thereof.
Another thing worth considering is that in both the Western and the Japanese version of the meal, great care is taken over presentation. The proper placement of food, the right way to move the material, the proper way to serve are classified as part of appropriate manners in many societies. How a food is served is often as important as what the food is.
Food events (Douglas and Gross 1981) – any event in which food is consumed are – structured and affected by several features of life. They are subject to time: different sorts of food events take place at different times of the day, month, and year. They are subject to social conditions: a food event in which only one individual participates in the food is likely to be manifestly different from one in which twenty, or even two, participate. Food events are subject to alterations due to economic and political conditions, social and ideological strictures, and other human effects.
The differences between different kinds of food events express themselves in visible and observable dimensions: foodstuffs, setting, service, timing, which are dependent on social features. In this chapter we shall try to illuminate the differences between different kinds of Japanese food events, and relate them to the social features that structure them.
4.1The Schematic Structure of the Japanese Meal
TO START, LET us consider a Japanese meal as a schematic model. A model for to cite Geertz (1966) – which individuals may or may not follow, but which most will recognise and acknowledge as a representation of the ways things “should be.”
A “schematic” Japanese meal consists of three elements: a carbohydrate, a soup (suimono), and a side dish (okazu). The preferred normal carbohydrate is plain cooked rice – gohan – though as we shall see other carbohydrates are quite common. The soup is generally a fish-stock based broth. Side dishes come in many forms, but in the most basic form it is usually a vegetable, traditionally quite often pickled. This basic module is called one-soup one-vegetable, ichijū issai, the presence of rice (or a substitute if rice is not available) is taken for granted. For younger Japanese, in their teens and twenties, okazu always implies some form of protein – meat, poultry, or fish – though this was not always the case. In the simplest possible meal, each one of these elements will be served in a dish of its own, eaten with chopsticks. It would be washed down with a beverage, normally tea, boiled water, or barley water.
An important, albeit covert feature of Japanese society must be considered here: modularity. For generations many aspects of Japanese life have been based on the construction of larger, complex domains by bringing together smaller, more basic elements, analogous perhaps to the “primitives” of some computer languages: basic building blocks, which, by inspired combination can yield complex structures. This can be seen in the structuring of social organisations, architectural elements, and manufacture. It is also visible in the construction of food events. It is as if the Japanese consciously construct elaborate social constructs of “empty” vessels which can be filled at leisure. An effect that derives from that is a principle of internal autonomy, which allows any element to change, mutate, enlarge or shrink so long as its “topological” relations with other elements remain the same. We can see this effect, and how these principles operate, in the case of Japanese meals.
These elements and the way we conceive of them pull the entire “corpus” of meal types into focus. To do so, let’s consider each element in terms of its composing features.
We start, as is proper, with boiled rice. Gohan or meshi, as the name implies, is the central item of our schematic meal. Ignoring for the moment some specific permitted variations, it is simply that: a bowl of white cooked rice. People do put flavourings on the cooked rice – furikake (flakes of nori, salted salmon, and other flavourings), curry sauce,1 may be added to white rice, and there are risotto-like versions of rice (takikomi gohan) featuring seasonal delicacies such as bamboo shoots or gingko nuts added during cooking, beans to colour the rice (sekihan) and even a form of sushi (chirashi-zushi). Nonetheless, the standard is white rice served as is. Cooked rice is judged by a number of sensory criteria. It must have the right flavour, of course, but it must also have an appropriate stickiness (nebari) dictated by the use of chopsticks, but which has become, by now. an issue of aesthetics as well, and a visible lustre when cooked.
The serving utensil is a chawan, (lit. ‘tea-bowl’), most often (or normatively) of ceramic, sometimes of wood. With the exception of Korean restaurants or food, it is never served in metal bowls, and we have never seen it served in glass.
Food, as we have noted, is a social marker, a way by which people express various social sentiments without having to iterate them aloud. One way of doing this is by way of the quality of materials used. And Japanese diners are not loath to play the “Best rice …” game. “The best rice comes from certain rice fields near Uji,” one informant told us, describing the precise location of the field. “I can tell not only which field the rice I eat is from, but when it has been cut.” Whether true or not (and such a boast rivals the efforts of the most finicky of wine-lovers), the concern with the quality of rice is a paramount cultural concern. Special parties go out to be near the fields where shinmai (‘new’ rice: the first of the season) is harvested so that the sugar in the rice will not become starch in the time between cutting and selling at the rice shop. Special bags of shinmai can be bought or ordered from many rice merchants. In actual terms, Japanese today eat about 70 kg of rice per person per year. This is less than half the 180 litres of rice which were the standard rice ration in Edo period Japan. This measure, a koku, also served as an economic measure, since stipends to retainers were paid in koku of rice. But the emotional and symbolic importance of rice continues to overshadow all others in the realm of food.
Most individuals, however, would not be capable of identifying the product of one field from another, any more than a blindfolded layman can distinguish between several wines at a tasting.2 An expensive chawan (rice bowl) in addition, serves notice that the owner is wealthy, a cultural connoisseur, has a family history of importance, knows proper etiquette and so on. The production, use, and (rarely ostentatious) display of proper ceramic utensils has been an ongoing feature of Japanese society for generations, and has become widespread as a result of the Tea ceremony.3 Ceramics were valued and treasured even before Sen-no-Rikyu, who codified the Tea ceremony in the sixteenth century, made a business of certifying tea utensils. The value of certain utensils has incremented with use from generation to generation. In the 1950s with the rise of the folkcraft movement, pottery began to obsess the average middle-class Japanese more than ever. For our point of view, this opens a large field in which the meal can be played, using only the ceramic utensils. Even without changing the parameters of the shape – a rice bowl must fit the hand, must be of rounded shape, cannot contain too much – there are innumerable variations on the theme. The external high valuation placed on certain objects means that there is also an extreme range of value (in cash terms) of utensils used. And finally (perhaps no less importantly) all of these differences – rice provenance included – are in the form of extremely subtle clues which only the cognoscenti know and are able to fully appreciate.
The use of a particular rice bowl is thus in itself a signal of wealth, erudition, and quality. It can convey seasonality by extremely delicate hints (not to mention convoluted ones: a bowl made in emulation of a famous tea bowl indicating a season by reference to the season in which the original tea-bowl came to light, for example), the event, or anything else by a covert, sometimes acknowledged, game of hidden witticisms and classical literary or historical references. The association with the Tea ceremony gives the rice bowl a hidden potential: it is associated with the most refined, the most expensive of all culturally valued activities. Meat is the centrepiece in the British Sunday dinner, and its quality and presentation are central to the definition of the meal. The situation is far more complex in our schematic Japanese meal. The centrepiece is rice, without which the event could not be defined a proper meal. Its intrinsic quality, the care taken in its presentation, its lustre, the serving bowl – are, without question, significant, and yet, because of its constant presence at most meals, and because of the unchanging nature of the rice itself, whose methods of preparation and (lack of) seasoning are restricted intentionally to preserve its pristine nature and flavour, it is an element that, no matter how significant, does not call attention to itself in the same way as a hunk of roast docs. It is also worth noting that whereas second helpings of accompanying dishes are not provided for in formal meals outside the home, the same does not hold true for rice, and men usually have two or more helpings.4
Shirumono, the “soup” element of a Japanese meal, suggest greater complexity, and more dimensions than the rice element. Where rice has an on-off quality commensurate with its great importance one either eats rice and has a “meal” or does not, and has a “snack” – shirumono allows the cook to make several distinct kinds of statements. The generic term shirumono refers to both clear light soups called suimono and thick soups (slum). Suimono are more usually served in restaurants, and include three elements: a piece of fish, seafood or poultry; a vegetable which complements the fish; and an aromatic garnish, such as a sprig of trefoil (mitsuba) greens or citron slivers. More often, however, in the modern world, shirumono means miso shiru: a broth to which fermented soy bean paste (miso) has been added.
The making of suimono is a complex process. The foremost source of flavouring for suimono is prime fish stock (ichiban dashi). It is actually incorrect to call ichiban dashi “stock” because neither boiling or long simmering of the stock ingredients is involved, and if so, would be likely to ruin its characteristic delicacy of flavour and aroma. Ichiban dashi is more properly a tea based on processed fish flakes (katsuobushi) and seaweed. However it has no hint of fish or seaweed, and ignorant first-time sippers may be forgiven for mistaking it for very refined, fat-free chicken stock. In contrast to French classic stocks that are simmered as long as possible for maximum flavour, dashi is almost instanteous stock. The time required is no more than it takes to let the required amount of water to come to the boil.
First, to prepare the katsuo bushi. A fillet of dried, fermented, and aged bonito (katsuo), closely resembling an extremely hard chunk of driftwood,5 is shaved (with an implement called katsuobushi kezuriki, somewhat like a reversed carpenter’s plane set in a box) into thin flakes. The resulting shavings will look as if you had been playing rather extensively with a pencil sharpener. Set the shavings aside. Lately, instant dashi powder (dashi no moto) has superseded this procedure, and very few home cooks make stock from scratch.
Giant kelp (konbu) strips are placed in cold water in a pot and brought slowly to the boil at medium heat. Just before the water boils, the kelp is taken out. Cold water is added to lower the temperature of the water and the katsuo flakes are added. Just before the water comes to the boil, the heat is turned off. Once the flakes have settled at the bottom of the pot, the surface is skimmed of foam and other floating impurities. The used kelp and flakes can be simmered further for use in secondary stock (niban dashi) suitable for stews and miso soup.
It is the ichiban dashi which forms the basis for suimono, by the addition of one, or a combination of two garnishes. These garnishes, particularly when the soup remains clear, exhibit a great deal of variety, from vegetables, through elaborate “knots” of vegetable jellies, to cheeks of tai (bream). The transparency of the soup demands and accepts only the visually attractive, and thus constitutes a challenge to the cook, as well as to the diner.
The most common (in both senses of the term: wide-spread and non-elite) soup, however, is based on miso, particularly in home cooking. Miso, an essential flavouring in Japanese cooking, is a paste made by fermenting soy-beans with salt. It varies regionally, from a pale creamy yellow to almost black. The colour. saltiness, and overall flavour are determined by the amount of salt, the kind of fermenting agent used (rice-based, wheat-based, or barley-based), and the coarseness of the grinding. Miso making used to be a cottage industry in some places, and was, until the advent of modern industrial methods and marketing, a strictly local product. The numbers of miso types have declined in the present century, but arc still quite large. Each household has a distinctive flavour for its miso soup, and restaurants strive to emulate this individuality by blending several miso types.
The miso is blended into the stock, and the pot immediately removed from the heat. The result is a cloudy, warm mixture which provides the stock with depth and body. Sometimes the stock is made more robust by adding niboshi, dried small fish. Additions and garnishes are legion: green-onions, tofu cubes, small clams, radish slices.
In the choice of the garnishes the cook/server is making a series of statements about position, wealth and perspicacity at a covert level, and statements about the season, the rest of the meal, the ambience, at an overt level. There are also historical and political issues to be considered. Miso shiru originated as a Kantō (Eastern Japan) food, and its spread throughout the islands is an indication of the penetration of metropolitan fashions, the homogenisation of Japanese culture and life since the start of the century.
In serving suimono as in serving rice, the utensils play a part. The normative ideal is to serve it in lidded lacquered wooden bowls. The quality of the lacquer, its decoration, the shape of the bowl (usually, but not always, a footed flattened hemisphere, lacquered red inside and black or red without) allows for a great deal of innovation, decoration, and overt statements. There is a pull factor, a correlation between the wealth and connoiseurship of contents and container. A clear suimono must be served in a quality bowl. Not only would a poor, badly lacquered6 bowl be immediately obvious through the clear liquid, but it would also be ludicrous, making mock of the attempt to preserve a high-level ambience. Of course, as in most prescriptions of that sort, there are many exceptions. The shape of the bowl may be different, middle-range establishments may use cheaper lacquer or even plastic, the quality of which improves constantly. But these exceptions serve to prove the rule: they are attempts to emulate for good or for ill, statements of quality and richness.
Okazu (the accompanying side dishes) help define the food event. The most basic module is one soup, one dish, usually a vegetable (ichijū issai), though nowadays, one soup, three dishes (ichijū sansai) is more common (rather like the British meat and two veg): an “upgrading” coming about through the gradual rise of affluence in Japanese society. One soup, three dishes is also the traditional basic module for kaiseki,7 the meal preceding a “thick tea” (koicha) ceremony, and its prevalence in daily family meals illustrates the percolation of formerly-elite practices into the mass of the population.
Most cooks are guided by certain basic principles in assembling a menu. Foremost is to judiciously combine the flavours of the mountain and the flavours of the sea – yama no sachi, umi no sachi – and those of (cultivated) field and river. Next is to consider the harmony of all the accompanying dishes in terms of colour, their intrinsic texture, and the added texture imparted by the five methods of cooking – deep and shallow frying, stewing, steaming, grilling – as well as the combination of the five flavours – salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and sharp. The contrast of cool or chilled dishes with hot is also considered.
The principles underlying the basic module of one soup three dishes is the result of various influences on endogenous frugal foodstuffs culled from nature. Prominent among those influences were some we have discussed broadly above: aristocratic and samurai practices of eating from low footed lacquered trays, each tray holding one “course”; Chinese chronological celebrations and the accompanying ritual foods, seasonings (soy sauce) and cooking styles (use of oil); Buddhist vegetarian preferences brought from China by Japanese scholar-monks; the all-encompassing aesthetic desiderata of the Tea ceremony; Western – namban (Portuguese and Spanish), Dutch, British – and other foreign ingredients (meat) and styles of cooking (baking); and the exuberant lifestyle of Edo and Osaka townspeople that made them very receptive to novelty and stimulated creativity in food, as well as other matters.
The combining and arrangement of foods (the two are inseparable) in the normal household or restaurant are supported by an aesthetic and ideological structure. This has been elaborated, as many other aesthetic endeavors in Japan, by schools of aesthetic thought or cooking styles. The Shijoryu style of cooking, for example, assembles its menu on the basis of the “three taste peaks” embodied in traditional sankaishiki (decorative or aesthetic) principles. That is, it believes that tastiness (oishisa) and quality alone are not sufficiently valid criteria for putting foods together. Much as music has its low notes and high notes, and mountain landscapes have valleys and deep gorges, so a menu must display similar high and low contrasts to create a rhythmic pattern while dining. The three peaks are – from highest to lowest – stewed dishes (kuchitorizakana), grilled fish (yakizakana), and raw fish (ikezukuri). Kuchitorizakana or kumizakana (zakana in this term derives from “saké” (wine) and not the more usual “sakana”: fish), literally “take to the mouth” or “grouped” dish, consisted of seven or nine mixed delicacies, such as steamed fish paste (kamaboko), sweetened chestnut puree (kuri kinton), or omelette-wrapped shrimp (tamago-maki ebi). Yakizakana was usually salt-grilled red bream (taì) served on a big platter or lacquer tray. Ikezukuri (lit. “raw preparation”) was sashimi of bream, bonito, prawn or other seasonal fish and seafood. All of these were enhanced by decorative garnishes keyed to the season and mood. The peaks represent not only figurative taste constructs but also more concrete ones expressed in the heights of serving implements used. Whether served in a large platter for a group or smaller individual portions, the serving dishes used must likewise have correspondingly varied heights and depths.
The cooking and food styles have a reciprocal influence on the major aesthetic icon in Japanese culture: the Tea ceremony. The principles of ichijū sansai are codified within the structure of kaiseki (Tea ceremony cuisine). It is this ritualisation which is partially responsible for the preservation of the aesthetic principles of Japanese cuisine as coherent standards. Though individuals and households can engage in changing, manipulating, and elaborating (or simplifying) these forms, they remain as known standards for comparison. That a great many people participate in the Tea ceremony in one way or another, ensures that these principles are, at the very least, known in some measure to a large swathe of the population.
Tea ceremony cuisine (kaiseki) has codified this “one soup three dishes” module as: soup, a raw (usually fish or seafood) dish, pickles, and stew. In kaiseti terminology, these are shiru, mukō zuke, kōnomono, and nimono. Of these, only mukō zuke is not common usage, although it has entered food specialists’ jargon and regularly appears in ryōtei (traditional exclusive restaurant) and ryōri-ya (traditional restaurant) menus, as well as food journals. The simmered stew (nimono) is the centrepiece in kaiseki and represents the acme of the host’s or hostess’s skill in choice of seasonal ingredients, textural harmony, and flavouring. Two sub-courses follow, a light almost flavourless consommé to clean off the eating implements, literally called “chopstick wash” (hashi arai) and a tray or rectangular container (hassun)8 of mountain and sea (or field and river) delicacies to accompany the saké9 that is offered again at this time. Other saké accompaniments, called shiizakana, azukebachi or susume zakana, may be added if the courses are deemed insufficient. While up to 17 courses may have been offered in the past, the aim in kaiseki is for the host or hostess to give a simple yet well-thought out repast as a background to tea-drinking, and any more than the standard one soup three dishes (plus hashi arm and hassun) would prove too burdensome and probably require professional help, thus negating the essence of kaiseki.
We can see that when additional dishes are added to the basic structure, there is a definite progression of preferences. Raw fish or other seafood is at the top of the list. Next comes grilled fish. Then a stewed dish. What happens beyond the one soup three dishes structure? Traditionally, hors d’oeuvres called saké no sakana (also called tsuki dashi. sakilsuke or kozuke) are served before the raw fìsh. After the stewed dish, a vinegar or citrus-juice marinaded sunomono is served. Beyond this, a further structure called nijū nanasai (two soups seven dishes) exists. It comprises saké hors d’ouevres, clear soup (suimono), sashimi, grilled dish, kuchikawari (with 7 or 9 assorted tidbits), stewed dish, vinegared dish, miso soup, sweet and green tea. Modern complex menus are structured quite differently from this, and will include a deep-fried dish (agemono) and steamed dish (mushirmono) in addition to the above, though a nod to tradition is indicated, as for example when another item is substituted for a stewed dish, it is called “stewed dish substitute” (nimono kawari).
Beyond the choices determined by the traditional menu structure and methods of cooking, are influencing factors such as the season, the occasion, the ages and gender of the diners, as well as elements of the cook’s and diners’ individuality including class, wealth, pretensions, and regional origin. References to the season are not only in the seasonal ingredients used, but also in the edible decorations used called tsuma, ranging from aromatic Japanese pepper sprigs to shiso flower buds and bamboo leaves. The references can often be obscure, and, given the multiple and manifold usage of signs in Japanese society, sometimes misleading. One such example is the slip of jagged green plastic that often accompanies dishes in cheaper restaurants and picnic boxes, sometimes serving as a separator between different items. Originally the green was a slip of aspidistra leaf, whose greenness was an indicator of the freshness of the contents. As an indicator of freshness, the plastic leaf fails miserably, as a sign indicating freshness, if unconsciously, to the Japanese diner, it performs its duty admirably well.
Japanese meal arrangements, notably but not only the okazu, also make explicit references to nature that go beyond the immediate. Proper food presentation, particularly in the upper (that is, more expensive and elaborate) levels of dining, includes an indication of the seasons, whether by use of conventional (and inedible) signs, such as appropriate leaves or seeds, or by the provision of foods that are in shun: the peak of perfection. As foods enter their individual shun, discerning Japanese and their suppliers – wholesalers, retailers, restaurateurs – are under pressure to supply the appropriate item. And up-market restaurants will take great pains in their presentations, to ensure that the menu is kept up to date, or, more properly, up to season. Plum blossoms might decorate a food in the winter or early spring,10 chestnuts in the fall, whether in symbolic form – for example, vegetables cut in the appropriate shapes or the actual products. By doing so the environment of most Japanese is suffused with some form of association and communication with nature (artificially engendered or not, is not the point)11 and, by so doing, with their conceptions of what Japanese culture is, or is supposed to be: sensitive to the natural world, aware of the tiniest hint, the most restrained statement.
To translate menu structures derived from kaiseki and the formal cooking schools to home cooked dishes (sōzai) and everyday occasions, requires simplification: one soup two dishes would comprise miso soup, a cooked vegetable, and sashimi or other raw fish/seafood dish, such as namasu (vinegar or citrus marinaded seafood similar to seviche). Another dish might be added to make one soup three dishes: the standard addition is a grilled or dry-cooked dish (yakimono), usually fish. A stewed dish may be substituted for the grilled dish. In the modern world, the formal structures, even abbreviated as they are, would be hard to follow but for the emergence and rising importance of convenience foods, modern marketing and transportation methods, and the supermarket. For women who also work outside the home, ensuring one soup three dishes for dinner everyday is not an easy task. Here the vast range of ready-to-eat dishes sold at supermarkets and department stores is a godsend. “On my way home from work, I already have a mental image of what I want to serve, based on what I have in the house. But if I don’t have the main dish thought out, either yakimono or nimono, then I first see what looks freshest and most interesting and then buy that, and plan to cook that from scratch. After that, I just look around some more and choose two or three other items to round it out, perhaps a tray of good-looking sashimi and some seasoned vegetables. Having all those cooked dishes to choose from is so convenient, and I don’t have the trouble of buying too much. A few hundred grams is sufficient for each,” said one informant, a career woman and experienced housewife.
Allied with the variance in ingredients and cooking method is the variety of utensils and their constituent materials, ranging from ceramic, stoneware, glass, through wood, leaves, and stones. Because the plate on which a dish is served is as much a part of it, and in fact each item in a Japanese meal is intended to be a piece of art in itself, great care is taken in selecting the proper setting for the food. The average household would thus have a variety of utensils – bowls, plates, dishes – in a wide range of colours – red, black, green, yellow, brown – and made of a variety of materials and finishes: lacquerware (plain or with gold motifs), pottery (ceramicware and stoneware) from kilns throughout Japan in rough, crazed, cracked, and smooth glazes. Fanciful shapes – triangles, fans, shells, squares, octagons, pentagons, cylinders, crescents – would also be present, representing both the taste of the owner and the necessities imposed by the form, colour, taste, and evocative nature of the food to be served: “Plates are the clothes for food,” Rōsanjin, the noted ceramicist and cook has noted.
Having briefly discussed the elements of a Japanese meal it is possible to see how putting these elements together in different ways, creates different types of food events. These different types correlate with significant social features, and link meals to other elements of Japanese society, ranging from religion to modern industry. Just manipulating the three elements we have discussed, generates three distinct types of Japanese food events. Each of these will be discussed in turn.
THE MEAL WHICH is most commonly eaten, the one for which the word “gohan” stands emotionally and practically, is a meal in which rice is the centrepiece. In other words, the type model described above. In a normal household, this may well be the main meal of the day, where all the household members gather:
In the family setting, meals are relatively informal, so while we set the table, with willing if obstructive help of the baby, Mitsuko moves the rice from the automatic rice cooker to the serving tub, and covers it. In the meantime we place a setting before the five of us. Excluding the baby, each of us receives a bowl for miso shiru, another for rice, and a flat plate for okazu. On the flat plate we put a mound of shredded cabbage topped with a dab of mayonnaise, and beside it several pieces of chorogi (Chinese artichoke) pickle, of which Michael is extremely fond. Mitsuko quickly moves a slice of salted grilled herring onto each plate, after putting the rice container, its paddle poking up, in the centre of the table. Miso shiru is quickly ladled out to each bowl. She serves rice to each diner in turn. We sit down, each of the adults helping themselves to a pair of chopsticks from the container in the centre of the table, the baby playing with his plastic utensils. We drink cold mugi-cha (barley tea) to cool us in the hot day.
The description is of a simple meal in which rice predominates. It is, in essence, the “type-case” of the Japanese meal. Our friend Mitsuko made sure that everyone’s rice bowl was kept full, each diner had a set amount of okazu, and anyone could ask for more soup. Though times have changed, and meals are neither gulped down, nor do people try to cram as much rice into their bellies in a sitting as they can, the centrality of rice is quite clear. No one is upset, nor expects, all the foods to be consumed, but avoiding eating rice would be a solecism.
These “central rice meals” as we label them here, characterise most of the family meals in a survey we conducted in 1991. Middle-class families tended to have fewer of these meals than they would have had twenty or more years before. Breakfast, for instance, was often a Western meal, particularly for children and younger adults. But a family meal (excepting eating-out) was indicated by the presence of a rice bowl, a flow of rice, and, because the families we surveyed were (as most of Japan) able to afford it, a variety of enticing and tasty okazu. But most housewives, young and old, we interviewed were at pains to state rice is central to a proper meal. It, more than anything else, defines the meal. The importance of rice was brought home to us more than once. In one memorable occasion being hosted by a young family in a mountain village in Niigata prefecture, we had several courses ranging from teppanyaki to sliced corned beef and bananas. It ended, however, with a bowl of curry rice which, perforce, we were expected to finish.
RICH IS NOT always at the centre of the proceedings. In fact, a “gohan” can include rice only peripherally, a sop to “proper” food, as well as a psychological necessity. For the modern European or American, the importance of a single carbohydrate staple is not so evident. We can, and do eat a variety of staple starches: potatoes, rice, noodles, polenta. We tend to forget that in recent history, as Murcott notes, and indeed even today for many families in the UK, potatoes are a “must have” for any truly satisfying meal. In Japan, as throughout most of East, Southeast, and South Asia, rice is that staple.
In modern Japanese society, however, this staple – shushoku – is not necessarily the centrepiece of meals. This has of course been true of all societies throughout time, in which staples have been peripheralised during specific food events such as feasts. Feasts are not everyday experiences, but, nonetheless, people are familiar with feasts partly, at least, because they structurally replicate daily meals. In Japan, a “peripheral rice meal” emulates a “central rice meal” in the presence and quantity of rice. The same amount of rice is there, but the okazu is expanded enormously and the rice is pushed to the periphery at the end. Most feasts, which are always peripheral-rice meals, are also undertaken with a set of formal rules in operation, such as exhibited, in abbreviated form, at the dinner we describe here:
The party was a celebration of the completion of a complicated piece of collective work. The host, the most senior man present, was from Kyushu. The venue was not a restaurant, but a ryōtei (traditional exclusive restaurant) famed for its Kyushu cuisine. The nōtei itself occupied several floors furnished in traditional settings, an oasis of traditional fittings amidst the skyscrapers and modernity of city life. We entered through a small and very narrow “cat’s lap” garden, with raked gravel and a small pond, into a wide genkan (entry-way) where we deposited outdoor gear (shoes, summer hats) with kimono-dressed receptionists, one of whom led us upstairs. Conveyed to the second floor along polished wood floors, we entered a 24-tatami room. The halls were panelled in polished wood, decorated with traditional objets-d’art and discreet flower arrangements (a decor that persisted, as we later discovered, in the washrooms as well).
We entered the room to find most of the guests already seated around an open-sided square. They were sitting formally, mostly on their knees, on cushions around the external side of the hollow square. Our proper bowing and formal introduction elicited a certain amount of laughter, Noda-san (our host) saying quite loudly that “modern Japanese no longer know how to do that sort of thing.” Much practised in formal bowing -Jeanne in the etiquette of flower arranging, Michael in that of iaido – we laughed too. There were twelve of us. It was a hot mid-summer evening, and everyone (except one friend, the irrepressible Ito, who wore a gaudy silk shirt in deference to the formality of the occasion) wore dark business suits.
A toast, drunk in beer, though saké was available, started the proceedings. Then the waitresses arrived, in elegant kimono, and first ensuring that everyone had a drink of their choosing, brought in the food. Since it was the middle of an extremely hot summer, the menu was labelled appropriately Natsu hoyuru (summer blaze).
The first course was individual servings of tori goma hitashi (chilled boiled chicken with sesame), which, our genial host informed us, was a speciality of his home town in Kyushu, of which he was particularly fond. Small chunks of chicken flesh had been quickly scalded in a light stock thickened with sesame oil, giving the dish an almost Chinese aura. This, served in rustic ceramic jars, was accompanied by green, crisp asparagus that had been cut to be handled with chopsticks, and which cut the heavier smell and taste of the sesame with a hint of the fresh sharpness of newly cut grass.
A mori awase (“mixed mound”) followed: a collection of titbits arranged on individual rough ceramic plates. The delicacies included Yanagawa maki (loach fa small riverine fish] cooked in egg), salted ayu (sweetfìsh) intestines, Arima style sculpin [a spiny river fish] stewed with powdered sansho spice. Arima, in Central Japan, is traditionally the source of the best sansho, a spice evocative of summer since it is used frequently on such summer delicacies as grilled eel. There was a small mound of glistening dark red candied arbutus, appropriately called yamamomo (mountain peach). The fruit, a small, nubbly red sphere with a cherry-like stone has a vague strawberry-like flavour, and matures in mid-summer. A few small pieces of fresh corn on the cob, roasted and lightly dabbed with light soy sauce, and miso-glazed taro completed the ensemble, which was decorated with fresh bamboo leaves for effect.
The main course was introduced by a tsukuri (a “food word” for sashimi) of ishigarei usutzukuri. Thin slices of rock turbot, a small delicate flatfish that is greatly prized in Japan as elsewhere, had been lightly marinated in ponzu sauce. Ponzu is the juice of a small bitter orange, with a remarkably refreshing taste. The fish, pale pink shading to darker flesh, was served with a small ‘“nest” of young green shoots, which had just come into season.
The main course was divided into three elements: nimono (simmered or stewed things), yakimono (roasted, or grilled foods), and sunomono (vinegared, or pickled tilings). The nimono was served cold: slices of grilled eggplant, cubes of umedofu (tofu flavoured with plums), a small saimaki roll, soli-cooked kidney beans, green shoots, and yellow sweet bean paste cubes accompanied the centrepiece: tori jibuni. Chicken sections had been stewed in a pot in a thick broth of freshly harvested soba (buckwheat flour), plain flour, mirin, soy sauce, and stock, then allowed to cool. The end result, balanced against the garnishing, was a surprisingly refreshing, light summery dish.
The yakimono was tachiuo kenchinyaki (cutlass fish: a long, vertically flattened fish looking somewhat like an eel). Slices of the silvery fish had been cooked in a style of cooking imported from China, with tofu, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, bamboo sprouts, and gobō (burdock root). This was accompanied by pickled myōga (Japanese ginger) buds. The same word myōga, written with different characters, means divine blessing, or protection, though our host refused to be drawn into a discussion of what he was protecting us from. Finally the course was completed with Chinese-style vegetables
The final element of the main course was a sunomono collection: pickles intended to see the rice through and to refresh the palate. Pickled slices of saba (mackerel), cucumbers, young shoots, and red peppers, were pickled in nanban (“Southern barbarian” [i.e., Spanish or Portuguese]) style, a delicate escabeche. These were served with small containers of freshly cooked rice: the necessary “centre” of any meal.
As is not unusual, the alcohol, the good food, and the fact that most of the participants knew one another for some time meant that the party got louder as the evening wore on. Eventually, staggering somewhat from the weight of food and drink, we made our way back to the hot streets.
As can be seen, there are several differences between the family meal described earlier, and the formal feast. First, in the same manner as a classical European (= French) meal, there were several “covers.” Each cover – we called them “courses” above – consists of several foods arrayed in some manner, on a tray, in dishes, and so on. Each cover is cleared, and another is brought in. Rice only features peripherally, at the end. Saké drinking party etiquette requires rice to be served after saké is no longer drunk: the tastes of rice and rice-derived saké clash, say purists.
There is also a great deal of “fit” between the occasion, the foods, and the utensils used. The latter are elaborate, fine pottery, good lacquer, hand-blown glass dishes appropriate to the summer. Not a piece of plastic in sight. Moreover, the fit extends throughout the event. With the exception of one iconoclastic guest for whom allowances were made, most people were dressed formally. The ryōtei was a formal place in which polished wood, fine decoration, and traditional craftsmanship extended itself to the confines of the equally impressive toilets with cedarwood sinks and fresh floral arrangement, lacquered fittings, and handcrafted (unrolled) tissue paper. The idea that there must be a “fit” between events is not, of course, unique to Japanese thinking. It underlies, as Irvine says, many formal human activities. This fit helps us explore the entire structure of peripheral rice meals. They occur quite often as markers and signifiers of important events, they formalise and publicise issues of importance to the participants, whether these be a couple being married, criminal gangs cementing an alliance, or seasonal changes. This is not surprising: feasts normally require a great investment and many resources. And they afford their participants with a great deal of sensory satisfaction and pleasure, in addition to an opportunity to display valued social facts and sentiments.
Nor is it surprising that white rice, which defines a proper meal and the expected modular accompaniment of pickles, is here pushed into the periphery. Rice, after all, is designed to satisfy one’s food needs: to fill one up. Feasts, and rice-peripheral meals are undoubtedly feasts, are intended to do many other things: demonstrate prestige, define sociability and social togetherness, display wealth. The plastic, autonomous structure of the elements of Japanese meals allows this sort of display and ostentation. Rice, the indicator of togetherness, remains much the same, but the okazu element of the meal is infinitely expandable in theory. Wealth without refinement would be ludicrous and incongruous, given Japanese self-view as a refined culture, one that appreciates and understands elaboration and good taste, and thus the sheer number and variety of courses must be accompanied by elaboration and refinement of utensils, service, setting, and the demeanour and presentation of the participants.
4.4Oyatsu: Non-Rice Food Events
THERE IS A third type of food event commonly found in Japan, essentially, a residual category which includes the various food events that occur practically in all societies that can afford them. In the European context these are snacks, nibbles, light meals, or whatever. In the Japanese case, these too operate under rules which can be identified from observation:
We had been sitting and discussing the construction of kites. Mr. Saito, now in his nineties, is an expert, and Jeanne has been following his work for several years. Old Mrs. Saito, hobbling slightly (she is over eighty, and rather overweight) brings a tray to the table. There are small glass plates for each of us. Each one has two slices of crisp juicy, almost ice-white nashi pears. Each has been peeled with deft strokes, then cut to the same size. On the plate one slightly occludes the other. There is a toothpick for picking up the pieces.
In our sample of household eating habits, the variety of foods eaten during oyatsu tilted significantly to the ready-made, the Western, and the sweet. But this is not necessarily a fair representation: most of our respondents were women and housewives. Gobbling a quick noodle bowl at a tachi-soba stand qualifies as oyatsu, as does a hamburger from a well-known American chain. As in many other cultures, Japanese like to snack on the run, and the scale of such snacks is huge.
In no-rice food events, white-cooked rice (in a bowl on its own) is dispensed with completely.12 This is not a proper “meal.” It is intended to stave off hunger, not satisfy it. And because no specific rules obtain, there is a huge choice and a huge variety. Walking down the street in Shibuya, which used to be one of our favourite places, we try to count the snacks available, only to give up after half an hour. There are tako-yaki, fried dough balls, the batter larded with small bits of octopus and pickle. These stalls compete with tai-yaki, fish-shaped (a tai is a sea-bream, hence the name) waffles stuffed with bean paste. Or one could try dango: balls of pounded glutinous rice coated with black sweet bean paste. There are of course Western foods as well. Sandwiches of every description (one dubious pleasure from student days, which has since lost ground, is filled with spaghetti), madeleine cakes. Sweet and savoury crépes. Grilled squid. Many of these dishes, particularly the traditional Japanese ones, are found mainly at fairs and festivals, but even on a busy shopping street there is a great deal of choice.
Unlike rice-centred meals, snacks are less a matter of display13 and messages, more a matter of individual choice. Mothers with small babies will indulge their own taste, and teach their babies, when choosing oyatsu, while they must cater to the rest of the family in rice meals. And because these are a convenience, they often consist of ready-made foods. This of course has immense implications for the food industry, where the culture of wrapping leads to a whole industry devoted to wrapping little bits of food in attractive and interesting ways.
Oyatsu also cross boundaries quickly between savoury and sweet flavours. A common snack offered to guests in rural areas is pickles, which more frequently twenty or more years ago than now, were home-made, and reflected specific household tastes. In Yuzawa, where we did much research, housewives would bring out glorious pickles: gourds stuffed with wild mushrooms, stuffed with chrysanthemum leaves further stuffed with bits of eggplant, the whole pickled in saké lees or bran. Sliced across, these morsels yielded surprising concentric circles of appetising contrasting colours, textures and flavours, which were eaten with toothpicks (which, a friend of ours noted, drily, arc a sign of rusticity). In other cases such snacks might be Western cakes, or a bag of dried snacks, according to age, gender, and personal preference. On the street one could snack on simple items such as grilled squid, or more complicated meals such as oden. a meal in itself, albeit without rice, either sitting at wooden stools or standing in front of the mobile kiosk.
TO SUMMARISE, JAPANESE meals are highly structured events, and the different versions of a Japanese “meal” are defined by the relative position of the major carbohydrate – rice – whose presence is culturally very important. The structure of these meals correlates with a number of other features of meals that we have not yet discussed.
The relationship between various aspects of Japanese meals is “governed” by a rule of consistency and appropriateness. Certain types of meals are associated with certain types of foods (they are more likely to feature than others) with certain types of utensils, with certain types of social gatherings, and with certain types of calendrical and temporal events. To give an example, a rice-centred meal is likely to have miso shiru and a small (less than three) number of side dishes, is likely to have less-expensive utensils and a smaller number of them, is likely to take place in a family home or cheap restaurant, and is likely to occur on a work day as midday or evening meal. Now this example is purposely trite: it reflects common knowledge about “fit” that we all have, whatever our culture of origin. This is precisely where a great difficulty lies, since we may assume that this makes all instances, and all elements, similar to ones we know. Japanese meals differ in a marked manner from Western ones in that they are componential. That is, each of the three elements can enlarge or shrink, changing its significance in the overall order of food events, and by doing so, both define the event (as a rice-centred meal, as a rice-peripheral meal, or as a no-rice meal). And this variation in one element is not necessarily contingent on changes in others. Neither rice nor its bowl would seem (on quick visual examination) to change much from one meal to another. The okazu change quite markedly, indicating a feast, and the suìmono contents, which might change, are far more affected by regional variations and preferences.
Douglas, Mary 1982 “Food as a system of communication”.
Ashkenazi, Michael 1993 Matsuri: Festivals of a Japanese Town.
McMillan, Charles 1989 The Japanese Industrial System.
Murcott, Anne (ed.) 1983 The Sociology of Food and Eating.
Yanagi, Soetsu 1926 [1955] The Way of the Potter.
Irvine, Judith T. 1979 “Formality and informality in communicative events”.
Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme 1978 The Physiology of Taste.
1There are exceptions to this. The simplest is celebratory red rice (sekihan), actually red wine-coloured from the azuki beans cooked with it. Rice with more elaborate flavourings or more than one addition are “scattered” sushi rice (chirashì) and a wide range of all-in-one dish donburi which feature meat, fish or poultry and vegetables cooked separately but served on top of rice in a large ceramic bowl or lacquered container, often with a lid. But in such cases, they constitute a dish, or even a meal on their own.
2There are, of course, varietal rice types whose popularity waxes and wanes with fashion. Koshihikari noted for its quality and corresponding price is one, and is in great demand. Akita friends swear by Akitakomachi. perhaps because the name evokes a classical beauty and poet who resided near Yuzawa. A third well-known rice variety, Sasanishiki, also commands high prices. All of these illustrate the intersections of issues such as the rise of the gurume, marketing, and conspicuous consumption in modern Japan, all of which will be discussed subsequently.
3Specialist journals on fine cooking, such as Shiki no Aji, cite the provenance (maker, type of glaze, kiln, source, etc.) of implements – ceramic, lacquer, wood or even glass – on which foods are photographed.
4When saké is drunk throughout a meal, whether at home or outside, no plain rice is served until the drinking is done. Our neighbours in Akita explained this as. ‘‘out or respect for the rice, which, being the same major ingredient in saké, should not have to share the limelight.”
5Somewhat similar to Bombay duck, which is not a duck but a rock-hard dried fillet of fish. Heating is required to enable the cutting off of pieces, which are then crumbled tor use in cooking or as a garnish.
6The quality of lacquer is generally judged by the number of layers of material deposited on the wooden base. It does not require too much perspicacity to distinguish a one- or two-layered lacquer from a multi-layered one.
7Although in general, kaiseki refers to the Tea ceremony meal, there is another kaiseki, written using a different Chinese character, which is used to denote a multi-course banquet held in a ryōtei for a group of people belonging to an organisation or who share a hobby, e.g., flower arrangement, traditional singing, etc. This would normally feature games or some other group entertainment, on special occasions such as New Year. At fancier restaurants, the term could also appear on the menu and denotes a multi-course Japanese meal.
8The course’s name is literally “eight Japanese inches”, the standard measure tor the wooden (normally cedar) flat trays used to serve the tidbits.
9Which, in contrast to other non-Tea ceremony events and saké-drinking banquets, is offered at the same time as rice. ‘[‘his is in recognition of the role of saké in enhancing the flavours of the various dishes that accompany rice, as well as to denote that the sake is not the main attraction in the meal.
10Traditional and modern calendar reckoning are in conflict. Thus though plum blooms in February in the Kantō region, it is regarded a “spring” flower by some, and a “winter” one by other sources.
11One of our friends, as a student, carried out a study of street decorations put up by merchant associations in small Japanese neighbourhoods. These, which, it must be emphasised, are made of plastic and other artificial materials, are changed with the seasons. This means that street-posts are decorated in the spring with sprigs of artificial cherry-blossoms, in summer with green leaves, autumn with red maple leaves, and winter with pine needles draped with tinsel to represent snow. No one seems to feel it incongruous to represent the changes of natural seasons by using artificial materials.
12In sushi, the rice is not strictly speaking “white”, because it has been flavoured, and moreover is very intimately linked with the fish and seafood.
13A particularly interesting snack may be provided for an important guest or occasion, the individually wrapped item prominently displaying a prestigious local or national brand. In the case of fresh Western or Japanese delicacies, the shop name would be displayed on the accompanying napkin, plastic fork and clear cellophane covering.