Among other cereals that are largely used are barley and wheat. The former is now much in request for brewing beer; and as it is more digestible than rice, a mixture of the two is eaten by many families in Tokyo. Wheat is mostly used as flour; it enters into many dishes as well as cakes. It is a popular favourite when it is made into macaroni, though in this respect it is eclipsed by buckwheat.
But in point of utility the soy bean comes next to rice, for our soy sauce which enters into almost all dishes is made from the bean, wheat, and salt. So extensively is this sauce employed that table salt is comparatively little needed. The bean is also the principal ingredient in miso, which is a mixture of the soy bean, steamed and pounded, with rice-yeast and salt. This miso is largely used in making soup; and soups into which it does not enter are usually flavoured by boiling shavings of sun-dried bonito and straining them off.
Mirin is a sweet variety of spirit, made by straining a mixture of sake, steamed rice, and a spirit distilled from sake lees. It is largely used in boiling fish and other food. Vinegar is made in various ways from rice, barley, potato, or sake lees.
The cooking of rice is a delicate process. It is first well washed overnight by rinsing it again and again until the water is quite clear, and emptied into a basket to strain. In the morning it is put into a deep iron pot which rests on a round earthen hearth or range by a flange around it; then, water is poured in, the actual amount requiring nice adjustment so as not to make the rice too soft or too hard, and next a thick wooden lid is put on. A few faggots are lit under the pot; but as soon as the rice begins to spurt, the fire is withdrawn, and the pot is allowed to cool slowly and equably; it is next lifted off the hearth and set on a straw-stand. When the rice has stood long enough to be of the same temperature and consistency throughout, the lid is removed and the rice transferred into a cylindrical wooden tub. Well-boiled rice is soft, but its grains have a lustre and are distinct from one another so that any single grain can be picked up with chopsticks. Excessive heat would have burnt the parts nearest the sides of the pot, while sudden heat would have produced rice of unequal consistency.
After the rice-pot is removed, another pot is put over the hearth for making miso-soup; if the kitchen range is double-hearthed, the remainder of the faggots lit for the rice is transferred to the neighbouring hearth over which the soup-pot is hung before the rice-pot is removed from the other. Miso-soup contains strips of garden radish, edible seaweed (alopteryx pinnatifida), bean-curd, egg-plant, or other vegetables according to the season. These two, the rice and the soup, are all the cookery required in the morning. There must of course be hot water for tea.
An invariable accompaniment at Japanese meals is the pickled vegetables. The commonest of these is the garden radish which has been pickled in a paste of powdered rice-bran and salt until it assumes a rich golden hue. Greens are also treated in the same way until their colour is dulled. But garden radishes, greens, small turnips, and egg-plants are also sprinkled over with salt and pressed for a few days. A few slices of these vegetables, after being thoroughly washed to get rid of the bran or salt, are always served at a meal. Most foreigners consider their smell nauseous; but to a Japanese a meal, however rich or dainty, would appear incomplete without these vegetables, pickled or salted. Kōkō or kōnomono, which is the common name for them, means “fragrant article,” and it is believed by many foreigners that the name was given them on the lucus a non lucendo principle; but the Japanese has no such aversion to their smell. The repugnance of strangers to these pickles is similar to the attitude of most Japanese towards cheese, the taste for which would require as much cultivation as that for kōkō on the part of one to whom both articles are foreign.
The breakfast is, then, very simple. Sometimes the family take their meals together at a large low table which is set before them at each repast; but often a small tray, about a foot square and standing six inches or more high, is placed before each member. In the left corner of the tray near the person before whom it is set, is a small china bowl of rice, while on the right is a wooden bowl of miso-soup, A tiny plate of pickled vegetables occupies the middle or the farther left corner, while any extra plate would fill the remaining corner. This plate also holds something very simple, such as plums preserved in red perilla leaves, boiled kidney bean, pickled scallions, minute fish or shrimps boiled down dry in soy sauce, a pat of baked miso, or shavings of dried bonito boiled in a mixture of soy and mirin.
A MEAL-TRAY.
The chopsticks are laid between the rim of the tray and the bowls of rice and soup. They vary in length, those for women being shorter than those for men but longer than children’s; their length may, however, be put at between eight and ten inches. Some are square in section, while others are round; but most of them taper towards the tip which is either rounded or pointed. The commonest kind is of cryptomeria wood, others are of lacquered wood or of bone, and the best are of ivory. Many of them are also tipped with German silver. Chopsticks may appear at first hard to manage; but their manipulation is not really difficult when one comes to see the way in which they should be handled. They are held near the upper or thicker end in the right hand. One chopstick is laid between the thumb and the forefinger and on the first joint of the ring finger which is slightly bent, and held in position by the basal phalanx of the thumb; this chopstick is almost stationary. The other is laid near the third joint of the forefinger and between the tips of that and the middle finger which are kept together, and is held down by the tip of the thumb; it is, in short, held somewhat like a pen, only the pressure of the thumb is much lighter, for if it were heavy, the force put into it as the chopstick is moved would relax the pressure on the other stick and cause it to drop. The tip of the thumb serves, therefore, only as a loose fulcrum for moving the stick with tips of the fore and middle fingers, while the upper half resting on the last joint of the forefinger is allowed free play. The most difficult part is the use of the thumb; beginners press the stationary chopstick too hard and make the tip of the thumb so stiff that the other chopstick cannot be freely moved. It is quite easy, when one gets used to the thing, even to move the stationary chopstick a little at the same time as the other. The tips of the chopsticks must always meet. In the hand of a skilled user a needle may be picked up with them; but it is quite enough for ordinary purposes if we can pick a fish or take up a grain of boiled rice.