The History and Culture of Japanese Food

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1. Emperor Tenmu's 675 meat-eating decree

   In 675 CE Emperor Tenmu, influenced by Buddhist doctrine against taking life, banned eating cattle, horses, dogs, monkeys and chickens from the fourth to the ninth month, the rice-growing season. The ban left out deer and wild boar, the most commonly hunted game, so it was aimed at protecting draft animals and the rice harvest rather than removing meat from the diet. Later decrees and Shinto ideas of pollution (kegare) hardened it into a broad avoidance of meat. That avoidance was officially reversed only in 1872, when it was publicized that the Meiji Emperor ate beef as part of Westernization.

2. Rice as meal, dishes as accompaniment

   The Japanese meal divides food into shushoku, the staple (rice), and fukushoku or okazu, the side dishes. Side dishes exist mainly to help the diner eat more rice, which is why they are salty, pickled or strongly flavored and served in small amounts. A meal without rice is not felt to be a proper meal, however much else is on the table. The ichijū-sansai format of one soup and three sides is this hierarchy made into a formal structure.

3. Sushi began as fermented fish preservation

   Sushi descends from narezushi, a technique from the rice-and-fish cultures of monsoon Asia. Salted fish was packed in cooked rice, which fermented to produce lactic acid that preserved the fish for months, and the rice was then thrown away. Over the centuries the fermentation was shortened until the rice was eaten too. Vinegar eventually replaced fermentation, which made possible Edo-period nigiri, fresh fish on vinegared rice sold as fast food at street stalls.

4. Dining furniture reveals family structure

   Changes in the furniture people eat from show changes in household social order. Individual box trays (hakozen), set out by rank, meant each person ate separately, in fixed positions and mostly in silence. From the early twentieth century the shared low table (chabudai) brought the family around one surface and made mealtime conversation acceptable. The later shift to Western tables and to eating alone from convenience stores continues the same story of how the household itself is being reorganized.

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