Besides the iron pots for making soup and other food on a large scale, which are set on the great hearth, we have small pots and pans for the little hearth. The pots have semicircular handles of metal, the ends of which are hooked into holes on opposite sides of the pots, while the pans have wooden handles fitting into sheaths at the side. They all have wooden lids. Fish and other food are roasted on an iron netting, about a foot square, which is put over the little hearth. When a fish is roasted, the fat melts and drops into the fire, raising large volumes of oily smoke and emitting a smell which fills the whole house. One can always tell, when a mackerel pike, for instance, is being roasted, long before one enters the house.
A SKYLIGHT AND THE KITCHEN-GOD.
For transferring rice into a tub or a bowl a wooden spatula is used, while soup and other food which cannot be picked up with chopsticks are put with a wooden spoon into bowls or on plates. For gravy a small earthen spoon is used. Kitchen knives are of three kinds: the square for common use, the triangular for dressing fish, and the long narrow-edged one for cutting thin slices of fish. The dresser is a thick, two-legged board, at which one has to kneel or squat. There are also bamboo baskets for carrying vegetables and other food which require to be washed; but those things which are eaten without first washing and must therefore be kept free from dust are brought home in a round wooden box with a lid and a handle. For pounding soft objects there is an earthen mortar shaped like an inverted cone, with rough ribbed sides, against which the objects are rubbed with a wooden pestle.
Uncooked rice is kept in a large box in a corner of the kitchen and is measured out whenever needed with a square wooden measure. Charcoal is brought in straw bags and emptied into a box under the floor of the kitchen or kept in an outhouse, and is in either case brought out for use in a bamboo or cane basket lined with paper. Soy is usually sold in wooden kegs as it does not change with time; but the poor buy it in half-pint bottles. Sake, on the other hand, is apt to grow sour, especially in hot season, and is bought in long-necked bottles holding a few pints; but if there are heavy drinkers in the family or many guests to entertain, casks are laid in. Pickled vegetables are made in old sake-casks which are put in a corner of the kitchen, often on the ground.
Around the kitchen are shelves, open or with doors, on which the services and utensils are kept. The sets for use when there are guests are carefully wrapped in paper or cotton and stored in special boxes in the kitchen or some other room. There is no pantry; but as every preparation is served separately in a bowl or on a plate, the quantity of crockery in a Japanese kitchen is very great. There is a shelf high upon the wall near the large hearth, dedicated to the kitchen deity, to whom offerings of rice and flowers are daily brought.
The sink, which is of wood, usually lies level with the kitchen floor, and one either squats on the floor or stands on the ground before it. Here all kitchen utensils and services are washed, everything in fact, except the kettles of copper, bronze, or iron, which are never washed but grow mellow by being patted with pieces of cloth steeped in hot water. Beside the sink are an earthen jar to hold water for washing and a wooden pail for drinking water, but there is really no difference in the quality of the liquid in the two receptacles as it has in either case been drawn from the well. The wells are either private or public; in the latter case, they are used by the whole neighbourhood, a small tax being levied for their maintenance, and are the favourite resorts for the exchange of scandals. As these wells have all wooden sides and a square wooden flooring where washing is done, they present a far from cleanly appearance, and the water is as often as not contaminated, especially in the crowded quarters of the city. The Tokyo municipality undertook some years ago to supply pure water, and as water-pipes have been laid throughout the city, the wells are rapidly disappearing in Tokyo.
A WELL.
As we have described the general appearance of the kitchen, we will now return to the sitting-room. The breakfast things have been removed; but preparations have before long to be made for the midday meal. If the master of the house is not at home, or indeed even if he is, unless he has a visitor, the meal is very simple. It may consist of some vegetable soup, boiled vegetables, such as carrots, burdocks, turnips, or pumpkins, or dried or cured fish, like salmon, sardines, herrings, or mackerel, or perhaps fresh fish boiled, basted, or roasted. There may be the same condiments as at breakfast.