The evening meal is the principal repast of the day. It may not differ materially from the midday meal, though fresh fish is more frequently served then than at noon. The fish may be boiled in a mixture of mirin and soy, be put into a soup made with an infusion of dried bonito shavings, be roasted on the iron netting with a sprinkling of salt or repeated coatings of soy, or be taken raw in thin slices. This raw fish is a peculiarly Japanese dish. A side of a fish, after removing the bones, is cut into thin slices and served with grated garden radish and eutrema, the latter in its hot taste being something between ginger and mustard, and also with a boiled yellow chrysanthemum. The fish is soaked in a little plat of soy in which the radish and eutrema have been mixed. The raw fish, especially if it is the sea-bream, is a delicacy which is highly appreciated in Japan, though many Europeans who relish raw oysters recoil from the very idea of eating any fish uncooked.
People who take sake have it usually with their evening meal, though some, of course, drink it at every repast and between meals as well. It is, however, the custom to take it in the evening when the day’s work is done. It is brought in a little china bottle which has been put into a boiling kettle and warmed. It is taken hot, and its effects are naturally more rapid than when it is taken cold, and pass off as rapidly. It is poured into a tiny cup; and as one sips it cup after cup, it warms one up quickly, but when its effects pass off, it is apt to give one a chill; hence, a man who goes to sleep immediately after drinking sake, needs more bedding than usual to avoid a cold on awaking. Another peculiarity in sake-drinking is that we take it with fish or other dishes at the beginning of a meal, and when we have done with it, we take rice. This drinking on a empty stomach helps to make it effective; and the Japanese way of drinking produces a quick but brief state of exhilaration.
CHAPTER VI.
FOOD.
Japanese diet—Vegetables—Sea-weeds and flowers—Fish—Shell-fish—Crabs and other molluscs—Fowl—Meat—Prepared food—Peculiarities of food—Fruits—The bever—Baked potatoes and cracknel—Confectionery—Reasons for its abundance—Sponge-cake—Glutinous rice and red bean—Kinds of confectionery—Sugar in Japanese confectionery.
IT will be seen from the foregoing chapter that the Japanese diet consists almost entirely of fish and vegetables. It is true that we also eat domestic and other fowls, and in Tokyo and other large towns a quantity of beef and pork, and horseflesh as well, is consumed; but their consumption is insignificant compared with the part fish and vegetables play in the Japanese culinary art.
We have a great variety of vegetables. The commonest and most useful of them is the garden radish, which is pickled or salted, boiled almost dry with mirin, sugar, and bonito shavings, put into soup, or grated to flavour raw or fried fish. Carrots and turnips, the burdock and the arrowhead are also boiled and served by themselves or together on a plate. We boil or put into soup the potato, the yam, and the taro, of which we have several varieties. Cucumbers are either pickled or served raw with pepper and vinegar. The egg-plant and the melon are also pickled or put into soup. We pickle or boil the onion, scallion, spinach, and lettuce. The kidney, horse, and other beans are in great favour and dressed in various ways. Mushrooms and several other fungi growing on trees or on rocks are served with fish or vegetables. The bulb of the tiger-lily and the rhizome of the lotus are boiled; the former is very soft, but the latter is hard and indigestible. The bamboo-shoots, when very young, become soft on boiling and are much in demand in April; but they grow fast and soon become too hard. Rice boiled with bits of bamboo-shoot is a favourite food in that month. The water-shield is held by some people to be a delicacy, while others esteem as highly the common bracken, snake-gourd, and water-pepper.
Sea-weeds are also in great demand. Of these the principal are the konbu (laminaria japonica), which is largely exported into China, and the laver, which is obtained in thin sheets and taken with soy alone or with rice rolled in it. The cherry-flowers and the chrysanthemums are also articles of food; the former are salted, put into hot water, and served in place of tea, while the latter, always the yellow variety, are either fried with a coating of kuzu (pueraria Thunbergiana) or boiled in brine and pressed.
Japan is especially rich in fish, as is to be expected from her extensive coast-line and great length from north to south. There are said to be about six hundred varieties of fish in the waters surrounding the country. Of these the one which is held in highest esteem is the tai, a species of the sea-bream (pagrus cardinalis). It is served in various ways; indeed, so numerous are these ways that there is extant an old Japanese book entitled “The Hundred Excellent Methods of dressing the Tai.” It may be boiled, roasted, basted, salted, or taken raw. Most other fish may be similarly treated, though they may not be considered so delicate. For being taken raw in thin slices, the fishes esteemed next to the tai are the plaice, gilthead, tunny, and bonito. Others are mostly preferred boiled. Among the commonest of these fishes are the gurnard, Prussian carp, common carp, wels, flying-fish, mackerel, frigate mackerel, horse-mackerel, mackerel pike, trout, rock-trout, white-bait, sand-fish, goby, sting-ray, sword-fish, sardine, salmon, sole, hair-tail, goose-fish, cod, half-beak, yellow-tail, grey mullet, shark, and sea-eel. The salmon comes to Tokyo salted, while the herring is sun-dried. The sardine and mackerel pike are usually roasted. The eel is treated only in one way; it is split from gill to tail, the back-bone is extracted, and the head cut off; the two sides are laid out flat and bamboo skewers are passed through them, and they are roasted over a fire, being from time to time dipped in a gravy of mirin and soy. Tokyo is especially noted for eels served in this way. The loach is also split and the bones are extracted; it is served in a pan over a hot-water bath, with eggs and chips of burdock.