Every individual has his or her own set of chopsticks, and separate
ones are used for serving. The same focus on manners and etiquette
developed here at roughly the same time, if not earlier, than it
did in the West, but obviously with very different results. There
is a similar avoidance of polluting common serving dishes with
one’s saliva, having to do with ideas of pollution and cleanliness
in Shintoism. The other unique feature is that the Japanese used no chairs.
They sat directly on a tatami mat or on the wooden fl oor, and like
drinking out of a bowl, it forces the person to do everything slowly
and more methodically. They usually bring the bowl close to their
lips and move the food with the chopsticks. Food is set on little
wooden tables, and typically everything is brought out at once. Very formalized and ritualized manners developed in the 16th and
17 th centuries among the samurai class, and for probably the very
same reasons, they developed among nobles in the West—at exactly
the same time. This type of manners prevents misunderstandings
and possible violent outbursts. Everyone is armed, but at the table,
there’s a ritualized truce. Probably the most ritualized ceremony involves taking tea (cha
dou). Tea itself came with Buddhists from China, but for some
reason, it fell from favor and became popular again in the Middle
Ages. The ceremony was developed in the 16th century and was
meant to refl ect Zen philosophy in that it sought to create an entire
aesthetic experience of art, architecture, gardening, crafts, and food.
There is a formal feast that goes with the ceremony, called kaiseki-
ryori, with very strict order of courses.The Presentation of Food
Although they ruled politically, the mercantile class is economically
the important class in this period. These people had money, ate
out often, and lived in cities, such as Edo, Osaka, and Kyoto.
They invented Japanese haute cuisine, which is the basis of most
traditional Japanese cooking today. It is these restaurants in the Edo