HOW TO HOLD CHOPSTICKS.
When the breakfast trays are brought, cups of tea are poured. The tea drunk at meals is common tea, which as it consists of old leaves, may be taken in any quantity without affecting the nerves. A handful of the leaves is thrown into an earthen tea-pot and hot water poured into it; and the pot is set over a fire to keep it hot. The infusion is of a reddish-yellow hue and is almost tasteless. The cups used are generally cylindrical, like mugs without the handles, and are assigned one to each member of the family. The china rice-bowls are also permanently given to the members. When the tea has been sipped, the bowl of rice is taken up and brought near the mouth, and a small quantity is separated with the chopsticks and eaten. In eating rice, the chopsticks scoop it up and bring it to the mouth as it would take too much time to pick it up grain by grain. Alternately with rice, the soup is sipped, and the condiments are also picked a little at a time with the chopsticks. Two or more helpings of rice are taken; as it is considered unlucky to eat only one bowlful, at least two are eaten even though the second may be a small dose consumed for form’s sake. One or two helpings of the soup are also taken; but it is not good form to ask for a second helping of the vegetables and other condiments on the tray. Rice is brought in the cylindrical tub into the room and served out there; but the soup is kept over a fire in the kitchen and the wooden bowls are taken there for the second helping. The last bowl of rice is often eaten with tea poured into it, and the bowl is brought to the mouth and the rice pushed into it with the chopsticks. It is, we may mention in passing, only the rice-bowl, besides those containing soup, tea, and other liquid or semi-liquid food which cannot be picked up with chopsticks, that is brought to the mouth; all other dishes are kept on the tray and the food is taken up with the chopsticks. Finally, the rice-bowl is filled with tea only to wash down any grains of rice that may be left in it.
A MEAL.
This finishes the breakfast. It does not take more than ten or fifteen minutes; indeed, people pride themselves upon their quickness at meals, especially at breakfast, as it implies that they have no time to dawdle over their food, which is taken solely to ward off hunger and maintain their health and strength. But it must be admitted that indigestion not unfrequently follows these hurried meals, to which children are early taught to habituate themselves by parental instruction and by a proverb which puts quickness at meals as an accomplishment on a level with swiftness of foot. When the breakfast is over, the trays, plates, and other utensils are taken back into the kitchen, washed, and put away until they are needed for the next meal. The wooden tub of rice is put into a straw casing in winter to prevent its getting cold and hard and on a stand in a cool, breezy place in summer to keep it from sweating.
Let us next turn to the kitchen and see how it is arranged. The kitchen varies very much in size; but the commonest range from six to sixteen square yards, that is, it would, if it were matted, hold from three to eight mats. But the floor is usually entirely boarded, though in a large kitchen a mat or two are laid for the servants to sit on. There is a space of ground at the entrance for leaving clogs in, and another on which the sink is set. The most prominent feature of the kitchen is the hearth for cooking rice. It is made of a shallow wooden box, on which a square plaster casing is built with a round hole at the top and an aperture at a side. On the hole the rice-pot is put; and the side-opening is used for feeding the hearth with small faggots which are kept in a cavity under the wooden box. The hearth is as often as not double, and over the other hole the soup-pot is set. The plaster between the two holes is often replaced by a copper boiler for boiling water with the heat of the faggots under the two pots. Over the hearth is a skylight in the roof, for the part of the house where the kitchen is situated is always one-storied; and a sliding shutter is moved up and down along the incline of the roof and fastened by a cord. The skylight is useful on a fine calm day as an outlet for the smoke of the hearth; but when a wind blows against the roof or the rain comes pouring in, it has to be closed at the time when it is most needed, for if the skylight is closed, the windows are also shut, with the result that the smoke spreads over the whole house. In some houses, therefore, chimney-flues have taken the place of skylights, which are, moreover, as has already been observed, among the burglar’s favourite means of ingress.
THE KITCHEN.
For ordinary cooking purposes a small hearth of plaster, stone, or iron is used. It is round or square, and larger at top than at bottom. The top is open with an earthen grating at a few inches’ depth from the edge, and an ash-box underneath, which has an outlet at the side for raking out the ashes and fanning the fire. But little charcoal is needed as the space between the grating and the bottom of the pot is very limited. Near the larger hearth is a black earthen pot with a lid, into which half-burnt charcoal is put and extinguished with water; and when they are dry, these half-burnt pieces are used for lighting fresh charcoal with as they catch fire much more readily. For stirring and clearing the hearth, we use a shovel with a long wooden handle and a pair of long iron rods which are held like chopsticks to pick up pieces of charcoal or cinders. The tongs which are used for braziers are much shorter and made of iron, copper, or brass; they are also used like chopsticks and are indeed called in Japanese “fire-chopsticks.” A hollow bamboo tube with a knot at one end which has a little hole in the centre takes the place of bellows.