Lecture 24: Edo, Japan—Samurai Dining and Zen Aesthetics

Edo, Japan—Samurai Dining and Zen Aesthetics..........................

Lecture 24

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apan’s cuisine development does not have to do with exotic ingredients,

complicated procedures, or fantastically impossible presentations of

food. Instead, it is a refi nement based on simplicity, austere aesthetic

presentation, freshness of ingredients, and minimal processing. In this

lecture, which focuses on traditional Japan in the Edo era, you will learn

about a cuisine that developed entirely in its own unique direction, cut off

from the process of globalization—not because of geographical isolation

but, rather, as a result of an intentional shutting out of the West.

Japanese Cuisine

 Many of Japan’s cultural and culinary traditions come from China

and Korea. Probably the most important of them is rice, which only

arrived in Japan at the end of the Neolithic period, about 2,400 years

ago, with immigrants from the mainland. Asiatic peoples came from

the continent with rice and metal tools, and the population suddenly

rose—just like elsewhere in Asia.

 The variety of rice introduced was short-grained, sticky, and

relatively sweet. To this day, the Japanese don’t eat long-grain rice.

Much of their cuisine is based on the tactile quality of the rice they

use and the fact that it sticks together and that you can pick it up

with a chopstick. It is nearly impossible to eat long-grain loose rice

with chopsticks.

 Their respect and reverence for rice is so great that it is never

fl avored or seasoned with spices or sauces. It is always pure white

and boiled. Other foods can go on top of it, but the rice should be

pure and bland to start with.

 One of the only preparations that alters rice dramatically is mochi,

which is little rice cakes made by pounding steamed glutinous

rice. Neither mochi nor sake are thought of as a corruption of