The First European Description of Japan, 1585 (32 page)

Every tea-garden in the vicinity of Yeddo [Edo] tries to rival its neighbour in the beauty and size of the peach blossoms,—but it is very difficult to get good peaches to eat. They are all habitually plucked unripe. It does not seem to me that the Japanese have any idea what ripe fruit means. They certainly never treat themselves to it, and after two years' practice, my market coolie could never be made to understand what constituted ripeness.
³³

Today in Japan one finds ripe nectarines as well as peaches, but no green fruit, with the exception of the large green “plums” that go into
ume-shu
, or “plum liquor.” There are also smaller but apparently similar “plums” that are pickled in vinegar and dyed bright red, sold under the name
su-momo
, or “vinegar peach.”

14. We cut melons lengthwise; the Japanese cut them crosswise
.

It makes sense to cut a melon crosswise, particularly if it has not been turned and thus tastes differently on the top and bottom. A lengthwise cut would be best for long melons with a flavor that varies from stem to butt, so to speak.

During the last half of the twentieth century most Japanese gave little thought to which way to slice a melon, as melons of all types were generally very expensive. Despite the high price, they were almost never sold piecemeal at the grocer's. Fruit was mainly sold to be presented as a gift: one melon or a few apples when visiting a house; a watermelon beautifully bound for carrying up a mountain to a Buddhist temple; a platter including pineapple and citrus as well as melon for a funeral display or a wake. Only well-to-do families regularly ate fruit, the exception being tangerines when they were in season.

15. We sniff melons at the stem; they sniff them at the bottom
.

The Japanese leave a portion of the stem on their melons (much as Americans do with their pumpkins), which hides the navel and thus makes it unrewarding to sniff the top of the melon. The stem is typically in the form of a “T” and it is profoundly satisfying to the Japanese because that “T” is found upside down in the Chinese character for “melon.”

16. We eat the melon first and then throw away the rind; they pare off the rind and throw it away before eating the melon
.

Europeans viewed the plant and animal kingdoms in terms of a “great chain of being,” which implied that various foods had qualities (e.g. hot versus cold, coarse versus refined) and particular social value.
³⁴
Melon was considered a “cold” fruit that should be eaten at the beginning of a meal.
³⁵
As Frois notes, the savory flesh was eaten while still on the rind.

Although the Japanese tend to completely prepare their food before eating, watermelon is an exception: slices are eaten with rind in hand, as Americans usually eat it. Smaller melons, persimmons and pears are first peeled and then cut into bite-size pieces, which are picked up with either chopsticks or a large bamboo toothpick.

17. We harvest unripe grapes for flavoring our food; the Japanese harvest them to be pickled with salt
.

Europeans once used the juice from unripe apples and grapes for a condiment called verjuice, evidently very sour, for a sour-puss was called verjuiced. Where today we use wine or vinegar for salad dressing, deglazing, and sauces, Europeans of the Middle Ages and early modern period often used verjuice.

Pickled grapes are not common today in Japan, although we have no doubt that Frois tells the truth, for there is little that the Japanese have not pickled at one time
or another. The pickling tends to be heavy on salt, for vinegar is only used for a few items; also, chili, sugar, and other spices are not used as much as they are in most of Southeast Asia. Today, green grapes—not unripe, but genuinely green—are eaten in Japan and are used to make a fine muscat wine.

18. All our dishes are served covered, except for bread; it is the opposite in Japan, with only the rice being covered
.

It perhaps goes without saying that a covered dish keeps food hotter, for longer, particularly when you are passing dishes around a table in the informal “French style.”
³⁶
Bread that is covered and not allowed to breathe becomes chewy and difficult to eat, particularly for those with poor teeth (common in Frois' Europe); better to allow it to go nearly stale and use it as a
manchet
.

The Japanese were (and are) as particular about their rice as Europeans were (and are) about their bread. Rice is usually served in a covered pot so it is piping hot. (In a good restaurant today soup is also carried out covered; this apparently is a later development.)

19. As fond as Europeans are of sweets; the Japanese are equally fond of salty foods
.

The cultivation of sugar in America, particularly Brazil, during the sixteenth century made it possible for more and more Europeans to enjoy “dessert”—finishing a meal with tiramisu, cakes, pies, and other sweet things. Previously, Europeans had to be content with food flavored with sugar or served with sauces made from raisins, grapes, figs, almonds, and prunes.
³⁷
Okada explains the Japanese love of things salty as a result of an abundance of salt in Japan, while sugar was an expensive import.
³⁸
Perhaps it is true that sugar was harder to come by in Japan relative to Europe, but the paucity of interest in most ripe fruit makes one wonder whether some other factor may be involved. The European craving for sweets might be related to the consumption of bread or pasta, both of which have a sugar content that is low relative to the rice eaten in Japan (unlike the
indica
variety of rice common in the West, which is short-grained and glutinous). Moreover, Japanese sake is very sweet. Isabella Bird's translator, Ito, told her that all who abstain from sake crave sugar.

Even today, the Japanese claim to be astounded by the sweetness of Western pastries, and yet their own traditional cakes that are served with tea astound us equally, for they seem to be of solid sugar! Then there is Japanese bean jam,
an
, which is mentioned in Rodrigues' 1620 dictionary and tastes very sweet. Moreover, almost all fruit in Japan seems to be advertised as “sweet” (
amai
)—a curious
thing for people who supposedly do not care for sweet things. We who love some tartness in our fruit find it hard to get a merchant to tell us the truth, for merely requesting such fruit (“tart” and “sour” are a single word and never fail to draw a grimace in Japan) is to suggest he might have inferior merchandize. That the use of “sweet” as synonymous with “good” and “tasty” in Japan—contrary to Frois' assertion—is no modern development is proven by Issa's haiku portraying peasant children innocently learning a lie as their very first word from their siblings who are selling bad persimmons, crying out “Sweet! Sweet!”
³⁹

Still, to be fair to Frois, it is possible that during his time in Japan the new trade with Europe and the increased trade with China marked the beginning of significant changes in Japanese taste. He certainly was correct about the Japanese love for things salty, owing perhaps to the Japanese disinterest in other strong spices. Salt, in the guise of soy sauce, miso, and pickles, made sense for a hardworking people who sweated a lot and ate little meat.

20. Among us, servants clear the table; in Japan, the very same nobles who eat often clear their own tables
.

This is not a general contrast but appears to apply to etiquette in a tea hut, a place where a male host did the preparation and serving and then cleared the tables. One reason why noblemen took such an interest in what Europeans thought of as “chores” was that doing these things is the art of the tea ceremony.
⁴⁰
At the same time, the
dogu
, or tea ware, which are the supporting props, were fragile and often the host's most valuable possession—the equivalent of a vintage automobile that a corporate executive in the West might sully his hands on and then proudly offer rides in to friends and family.

21. We wash our hands at the beginning and at the end of each meal; because the Japanese do not touch their food with their hands, they have no need to wash them
.

It is reassuring to read that “our” ancestors regularly washed their hands before and after eating. But then one reads Erasmus' account of a German inn that he visited where he was horrified to find people washing their hands in a filthy bowl of water.
⁴¹
The experience apparently contributed to Erasmus'
De civilitate morum puerilum
(1530), a work that sought to remake all of European society through new standards of cleanliness and “appropriate” behavior (e.g., “it is boorish to plunge your hands into sauced dishes.”
⁴²
).

With respect to the Japanese, Frois might have noted the exception of the tea ceremony, which dictated that guests wash their hands before holding and
admiring the host's priceless tea service (much as one washes their hands out of respect when entering some Shinto shrines).

22. We eat our thin noodles hot and cut up; they put theirs in cold water and eat them in very long pieces
.

Once cooked, the Japanese immediately submerge their noodles in cold water to preserve their “hips” or what the Italians refer to as their bite (
al dente
). Long before instant ramen, Japanese noodles were quicker cooking than most pasta. Some, such as
somen
, were and are as thin as a hair. Although all Japanese noodles may be eaten cold, Frois may have had in mind
soba
, or buckwheat noodles, and possibly even
udon
, which are made from wheat and are generally slightly thicker and square-edged. Today
somen
is almost always eaten cold,
soba
about half the time, and
udon
rarely. (The Koreans have far more varieties of cold noodles, perhaps because they are heated sufficiently by chili peppers.)

23. We eat thin noodles with sugar, eggs, and cinnamon; they eat them with mustard and pepper
.

Most Westerners forget or are unaware that tomatoes originated in the New World. In 1585, pasta with tomato sauce was unknown or a recent innovation (note that the tomato, potato, and maize all took time to gain wide acceptance in Europe). As Frois suggests, it was far more common for Mediterranean Europeans to serve pasta with raisins and spices such as cinnamon (reflecting Arab influence) and to eat it dry (meaning no sauce) with the fingers!

The Japanese often include some sweet sake and, less frequently, mandarin orange slices, in their sauce for
somen
. Thus, Frois' contrast seems a bit stark, unless, as suggested above, the Japanese developed something of a sweet tooth after Frois' time. Today, as in the past, the Japanese use a very potent sort of horse-radish (
karashi
) to flavor some noodle dishes. Presumably this is what Frois meant by mustard (
mostarda
).

24. Europeans enjoy chicken, partridge, pastries and
blancmange
; the Japanese enjoy feral dog
⁴³
, crane, monkey, cat, and raw seaweed.
⁴⁴

The last European item,
blancmange
⁴⁵
might be unfamiliar. Roberto de Nola's famous 1529 cookbook,
Libro de guisados, manjares, y potajes
, referred to
blancmange
as “the king of dishes.” While recipes varied, it generally was created by boiling fatty chicken meat along with rice flour, rose-water, sugar, goat's milk, or white almond and saffron until the chicken looked like melted white cheese. The dish was topped off with a sprinkle of fine sugar.

Let us take the “strange”
potpourri
of Japanese items one at a time:

Feral dog was eaten in a dish that today is called
sutamina
(food for increasing one's stamina) by men doing fighting or heavy labor outdoors, and by people
of either sex suffering from
natsu-yase
, or “summer thinning.” The Chinese character for “thin” includes the “sickness” radical, for wasting away was a real disease in Japan for both men and women. Today, Japanese of both sexes—but mostly men—eat liver and leek or fatty eel on rice for their
sutamina
, but no wolf (see
#41
below).

As Frois knew, having eaten with the rulers of Japan, crane was a favorite banquet food of the nobility, in part because the bird was a symbol of longevity. Frois apparently never ate with Europe's rulers or he might have known that they also served crane, not to mention stork, plover, peacock and a few other exotic birds (the Judeo-Christian “great chain of being” cast birds, particularly high-flying birds, as appropriate for European elites).

Monkey is dubious, although one can imagine the Japanese not wanting to waste the meat of monkeys that were killed for damaging crops.

Okada quotes Japanese literature confirming all of the foods mentioned by Frois except cat. He believes Frois mistook
tanuki
(“raccoon dog,”
Nyctereutus procyonides vivverinus
), weasel, or something else for cat. However, considering the fact that cat skin was used for making
shamisen
banjos (see
Chapter 13
) it is not unlikely that some part of the cat was eaten. The irony here is that if cat was eaten anywhere, it was in Europe.
⁴⁶
Again, de Nola's cookbook includes a recipe for roasted cat that purportedly tasted like rabbit or veal, although the author advised against eating the brain “lest the diner become crazy in the head.”

As regards raw seaweed, this is perfectly ordinary food, but one rarely hears about seaweed; the Japanese refer to it as sea grass (
kaiso
). Japanese people no more eat “seaweed” than we eat “land weed.” The Japanese eat specific varieties of marine algae:
nori, ishinori, konbu, wakame, mozu, hijiki
, etc. Most of these are processed or cooked, but many varieties of raw “seaweed” (the names of which are only known by gourmets) are served on a
sashimi
platter. The Portuguese term
limos da praia
, or “beach slime,” suggests the texture of only two of the six varieties mentioned above. The Portuguese language does not differentiate algae from seaweed, although
limo
most often refers to slimy algae, whereas
algas marinas
, or marine algae, is a term generally associated with seaweed, a cover term for a variety of different algae.