Early Japan: Geography and Culture

• Early Japan consisted of different provinces with regional variations like dialects.
• Hokkaido was not included in early Japan.
• Japan was close to the Korean peninsula, leading to cultural exchange.
• Japan is mostly mountains.
• The most agriculturally productive regions are basins.
• Modern Osaka and Kyushu are located around the basin of Tokyo.
• Mountains cover 80% of Japan.
• Limited agricultural territory was available for growing grains, which feed a larger number of people.
• Keyhole-shaped mounds were tombs called kofun.
• Tombs usually contained two burials, a man and a woman
• Early rulership was conducted in pairs.
• Hunter-gatherers used a primitive food system.
• Shells from seafood found in garbage pits determine what they were eating.
• Walnuts, acorns, and chestnuts were calorically dense food items.
• Acorns required a lot of work to make them edible, which meant they were not very efficient
• Acorns had to be processed by boiling them and treated with ash to remove toxins.
• Double-tiered clay ovens were used to store everything in pottery.
• The transition from nuts to grains was a significant development.
• Grains included brown rice, proso millet, soybeans, foxtail millet, adzuki beans, and barley.
• 300 BCE to 500 was when the rise of grains occurred
• The Battle of Paekchon River took place in 663.
• This battle involved a lot of exchange between the Korean peninsula and Japan.
• Japan sent boats to help Paekche, who was the losing side, in a fight against other parts of Korea and China.
• Refugees fled to Yamato
• Fear of being conquered led to the formation of government and writing.
• The Jinshin War occurred in 672.
• Tenmu, the Great King, and Jitō, the Great Queen won the Jinshin War.
• A divine right to rule, descended from the Sun god, was established.
• This led to the formation of the Kojiki.

Sake Production

• Sake is made by washing rice and immersing it in water, then steaming the rice.
• Koji is made by sprinkling it on top of the rice and allowing it to harden, put in stacked containers with premodern temperature management
• Yeast is made to convert sugars into alcohol.
• Making moromi mash is a 4-step process.
• Koji and rice are combined continually in separate stages.

Multiple Parallel Fermentation

• Conversion of starches into glucose and yeast converts glucose into alcohol.
• Saccharification and fermentation happen simultaneously in the brewing process in two steps.
• New sake is formed from the compression of mash.
• Premodern sake was cloudy.
• Modern sake uses rice specifically bred for sake classified by Daiginjo.
• Sake is classified by amount/proportion of sake rice used in brewing on a scale from dry to sweet.
• Sake subcategories include Nigori, which is cloudy, and Nama, which is unpasteurized.
• Pasteurizing extends shelf life.
• Genshu is undiluted sake.
• Muroka is unfiltered.
• Premodern sake had no sealed bottling, no pasteurization, and no sake rice.

Miso Production

• Soaked rice is steamed, cooled, and treated with koji.
• Koji makes enzymes that break down into building blocks
• Amino acids are important for converting soybeans.
• Soybeans are cooked, then combined with koji, soybeans, salt, and a small amount of miso.
• The mixture is made into balls and packed into a jar.
• Liquid rises during enzymatic digestion, which creates a barrier that keeps out contaminating bacteria.
• There are 6 attributes of miso: method of fermentation, flavor, color, texture, cost, and region of origin.
• Natural fermentation takes 3-6 months and has no additives, while quick fermentation takes 3 days-3 weeks, includes additives, is pasteurized, and sweet.
• Salt makes miso more shelf-stable and less sweet.
• 10-14% salt content is salty with a lower number of carbs, while 7% is sweet with richer carbs.
• Color varies between red and white miso, which is affected by ingredients and aging.
• Texture can be chunky with koji or smooth.
• Cost is determined cost ranking and by whether plastic bag miso pasteurization is used
• Rice, barley, and soybeans are regions of origin.
• Rice miso, soybean miso, and barley miso are also regions of origin.
• Rice was a tax product and food for the aristocracy.
• Historically, miso had more soybeans and barley than rice.
• Soybean miso has no grains, is very dark, such as Hatcho miso in Nagoya, and is often most expensive.
• Kinds of miso include white and red.
• Dashi is an infused soup base.
• Dashi is typically made from dried ingredients such as konbu kelp, bonito, and mushrooms.
• Umami

Preservation Methods and Governance

• Preservation methods include fermentation, salt, and drying.
• Temmu and Jitō raised an army, organized, and ranked clans in the area that is now Kyoto and Nara.
• They declared the Jinshin War and were descendants of the Sun Goddess, an agricultural deity, increasing centralization.
• Forces connected with different Japanese clans were involved in the war on the Korean peninsula.
• Being horribly defeated made them fearful of invasion from the continent and from Korea or China.
• Ritsuryō refers to a hierarchy countrywide administrative system with the tennō, early ruler, at the top where all land belonged to them to distribute as they saw fit.
• Penal, crimes and how they should be punished, and administrative, how do you rank/organize people, laws
• Administration was more interesting to elites in Japan
• This was an adaptation from China
• The ruling elites were interested in the creation of a sophisticated government
• Seven ministries oversaw a hierarchy of agencies, bureaus, and offices, and breaking the country down into smaller provinces.
• Council of State was a ruling body of ministers and their responsibilities
• Members were drawn from the most powerful families of the Yamato region and the most powerful clans.
• The Tennō ruled through the council, with ministers overseeing ministries that oversaw provinces.
• They collected labor and resources from throughout the country.
• Royal Food Provinces were special locations with an ancient, historic connection to the tennōs kitchen and local elites who had cooked for them such as Shima, Wakasa, Awaji, Awa, and Kii regions

Ranking System

• Tennō ranked above 1
• The Council of States ranked 1-3 and included decision-making elites appointed by royals, the Prime Minister, the Minister of the Left and Right, the Inner Minister, and Councilors
• Middle Management ranked 4-5 and included top managers of ministers and bureaux, Junior councilors, Major controllers, and Controllers.
• Five or above could be in the same room as the tennō.
• Lower bureaucrats ranked 6-8 and included Ministry and bureau staff and Secretaries.
• Apprentice bureaucrats were unranked and included Clerks
• Rank was connected to job and family, with about 5,000 people ranked.
• Everyone else was unranked and contributing to the system, the vast majority.
• Probably only a few hundred could be in the presence of the tennō.

Ritsuryō Effect on Food

• Food systems include production, distribution, consumption, and waste management of food.
• Food culture changes over time, often as a result of changing systems, which help us understand this.
• Palate and taste are constructed over the course of a person's lifetime constructed based on what is available and during formative years of life.
• There is also genetics to consider but this does not affect ones culinary life as much as previously thought.
• Presence of food in community depends on agriculture, ecology, food processing and trade.
• There was no cash economy in the Nara and Heian period
• Coins from Chinese influence were used for rituals instead of spending
• Usage of coinage was capital-centric.
• Objects of currency included rice, important tax item, other beans/grains - but ordinary and poor people did not get any
• Cloth, seafood, including seafood and kelp, salt, which takes a lot of seawater to make a small amount, and specialty products like salt fermented fish were also significant
• Transportation of food was carried out by oxen, corvée labor, ships, and horses
• Corvee labor was a contract where someone is expected to do something without being paid.
• Baskets and ceramics, pots, sardine belt, and salmon/wasabi provinces were used based on region resourcefulness.
• Abalone was shipped from all over Japan to represent the monarch's rulership over Japanese islands.
• The abalone was dried out to ship it all throughout and it was a key ingredient in palace cooking.
• Tax collection involved tying up food objects in bundles.
• By the 8th century, complex high cuisine with lots of ingredients and methods of preparation emerged, dining experience is also highly ritualized.
• A wide tax base allowed for a lot of different ingredients to work with.
• Powerful elites were able to gather resources to create foundations of Japanese food culture.
• Mokkan were wooden documents that were often fixed to packages from provinces and across government offices with names of family/village producing product, how much there is, which functioned as shipping tags.
• Mokkan were also being used for interdepartmental memos, such as the Royal Meal Office, or just being reused to make boxes and being doodled on- writing was done on wood because Paper was expensive to make.
• The laws were Interpreted by elites and authority figures; laws on paper being executed; with concrete applications.

Royal Meal Office

• Important for tennō to consume food from across the realm.
• The Royal Meal Office in charge of cooking for the monarch, consorts, and the royal heirs.
• Managed ingredients from the Royal Food Provinces.
• It also marshaled all tax foods and oversaw Flow of ingredients, kitchens, meal prep.
• Two Directors would taste tennō's food for poison, which shows that food/consumption of food had more importance in Japan than in China. The positions were filled from the Takahashi and Azumi families.
• The office Managed forty cooks and even more supporting staff, but this was a bad idea because chain of command becomes unclear
• Other important food offices included the Brewery office, which handled sake and vinegar, the Banquet agency, an important kitchen office that made meals for non-royals, and the Gardens and ponds office, which oversaw fruit and vegetables, fields and orchards.
• Handled potable water and managed the ice houses inside the Water Office.
• Hishio was a precursor to miso meeting fish sauce as well as fish and meat, there was a Hishio Shop on palace precincts; Hishio served to workers also
• The Man'yoshu contains 10,000 leaves of individual poems written and compiled; early poetry source

How Food Came To The Nara Palace

• Managed by treasury offices provinces expected to provide specific goods by way of taxes.
• Royal Food Provinces became Special tribute locations, lands affiliated with the Royal Meal Office .
• These became fresh produce and food produced by specializes in/around the palace.
• In Ritsuryo Food was used as taxes, bureaucracy that managed ingredients and cooking, and Rituals created to maintain food systems.
• Pre-nara, Nara period edible plants included Turnips, daikon Winter melon, sesame, azuki beans, konnyaku, Lotus root, ginger, rice, soybeans, and lettuce because Rituals existed to "protect the realm”.
• Seasonality has played a large role in Japanese cuisine, art and literature; including Spring 1-3 months Summer 4-6 months Fall 7-9 months. Winter 10-12 months
• Domestication began in the Middle and Lower Yangzi in China
• Irrigation rice reached Kyushu between 1000 and 500 ВСЕ and was organized by different elites
• Rice became foundation of fiscal system and food for elites.

Environment Of Rice Growing

• Mountains cover 61% of Japan
• Hills cover 11% which would later be affected by watercourses
• High rainfall landscape made land unconducive for irrigated rice cultivation
• Autumn and spring were times to gather food
• Autum plants include Fruits and tree nuts
• Spring plants include Many edible plants and herbs
• Break up the soil
• Hoe and spade in the Nara period
• Ise Shrine incorporated tillage into agricultural ritual
• Fertilization is Necessary for most dry crops
• Landslides and natural disasters, soil isn't in place
• Animal manure such as Night soil
• Transplantation from sets in the previous harvest
• Water level is adjusted as seeds ripen and grow
• Taxes to be delivered from month 9-11 in the Harvest period and are determined by different rice
• Rice is later cut and sorted once dry

The New Monkey Music Primary Source

• Tamaka is a successful agriculture.
• Assisting in Dewa providence and making the land hydraulic
• Early and late rice are harvested along with buckwheat and wheat
• Naturally there are Droughts, rains and inspecting feasts
• Taxes, unhulled rice

Instability in Nara

• By the 770s
• The last of the female monarchs in Japan led to the fall of power
• The capital then has to be moved to
• Heian due to bad omens.
• This led to emergence of power families as elites started to expand.
• By decreasing central power taxes went down.
• Dual Financial system was introduced.

Rise Of The Fujiwara

• Became important courtier of Japan
• Powerful families such as regent and advisors manipulated the the monarch of Japan
• The women dominated in the government, the men however were advisors and held financial power
• Banished from position

Banquet And Power

• Banquets were important
• Men of power were present which led to competition of dishes
• During this time new and diverse ingredients were introduced
• This social dynamic was essential to the culture
• The heion banquet was structured around dinking and the consumption of fish and soup after
• All members ate food around the 4 courses
• Ice was a rare food with sugars

Flavors Of The Time

• Sweet flavors were emerging
• Special attention was place on food due to the influx of
• Tea
• Sweets
• Herbal medicine.
• Food for the spirits lead to mochi
• Fresh and local components.

Mochi and Culture

• Mochi lead a path into new traditions such as
• Mochi for infants
• Conspicuous assumptions by the royal authorities
• The literary such as the Tale of Genji
• And in modern times we have daufuku which is big mochi

Food Systems

• Traveling for food and religion influenced Japanese diet through
• Miso
• Zen Buddhism through the process of food consumption.
• The precepts and monasteries developed as a result.
• The act of eating with others was deemed meditative at the time.

Japan and power

• Military Japan and governments helped develop Buddhist cuisine between multiple sectors, even Samurai used for food in power.
• The Samurai also appointed rice to provinces.

Zen Buddhism influenced cuisine:

• Fundamentals of Buddhist Cuisine.
• Purifying measures to eat only pure foods
• The colorful aspect and look of the food became important.
• Also The Five Forbidden Herbs.
• Each had varying social and cultural implications.
• Traveling allowed methods of food creation through zen
• In Japan, eating allowed markets to sell the food

Japanese markets:

• Temples sold rare and complex foods.
• Japanese diet was affected in markets by the presence of:
• Chinese Markets
• Small sweets and noodles for a cheaper price
• The abundance of wheat used for these also brought about new economic systems.
• The Taji system allowed markets for temples that sold different food such as elite sake
• Food in politics became extremely important.