The First European Description of Japan, 1585 (33 page)

25. We eat our trout lightly broiled or cooked; they put theirs on wooden skewers and roast them until they are burnt
.

In the old country hotel where one of us (Gill) spent his first few months in Japan, smoke quickly became the call to breakfast, which consisted of fish that was always burnt. As most of the part singed black is the heavily-salted skin, which is discarded anyway, burnt fish is not as crazy as it seems. From reading Frois it is apparent that the Japanese have had many centuries of practice at it. It should be noted that Frois probably was referring to either salmon or sweetfish (
ayu
) when
he referred to the
truta
(‘trout') of Japan. (Since at least the eighth century the Japanese have used tame cormorants to catch the
ayu
, who swim upriver to spawn.)

26. Among us, wine is chilled; in Japan, they heat it before drinking, during almost the entire year
.

Imagine coming home to a “hot one” rather than a chilled glass of
vinho verde
. Sake lovers explain how the heat brings out this or that quality of the
sake
, but the wariness the Japanese had, and still have, for all cold drinks may be more explanatory. Some thirty-five years after the
Tratado
was written, Rodrigues noted that while everybody now drinks warm wine all year round, the “true and ancient custom” was for warm wine to be drunk only from September to March (from the ninth day of the ninth moon until the third day of the third moon); the rest of year it was drunk cold.
⁴⁷

The Japanese were not alone in heating their wine; drinking wine warmed by the fireplace or diluted with warm water was popular among all classes in all seasons in France and Iberia. Many Iberians today share the Japanese distrust of chilled drinks, believing they are bad for the throat; warmed wine is still popular in certain parts of the Peninsula (e.g. Galicia) during the winter months.

27. Our wine is made from grapes; theirs is all from rice
.

Southern Europeans considered wine, particularly diluted with water and enhanced by spices, the perfect drink. (Besides tasting “good,” particularly during the winter months, spiced wine was thought to have medicinal properties such as aiding with digestion.) With respect to Japan, “all” is a bit of an overstatement, as some rice wine was or is flavored with fruit and turned into plum or persimmon wine. Some of the best persimmon wine is made at Zen temples, just as the Benedictine order is renowned for its Bénédictine, which is made from over two-dozen plants and spices (but no grapes).

28. We drink with one hand; they always drink with two
.

There was no physical reason for using two hands.
⁴⁸
To receive something with both hands shows that it is not taken lightly, and to continue holding a cup with two hands bespeaks sincerity. Frois might also have noted that the Japanese poured wine with the arm held straight out and rigid, with the second hand holding the pouring arm as well. This idea of propriety through stiffness is still understood in Japan, as is two-handed drinking, although today both are rare (today one might see two hands being used by an older married couple or the winner of a Sumo tournament).

29. When we drink, we do so seated in chairs; they do so on bent knees
.

Again, Frois is concentrating on formal drinking, where men sit back on their feet with their knees pointing forward. Men did not always drink like that and seldom do so today. This distich is a further reflection of the Jesuits' concern with mastering the elaborate formalities of the Japanese nobility.

30. We drink from silver, glass or porcelain cups; the Japanese use sake cups made of wood or unglazed earthenware
.

On special occasions such as New Year's, the Japanese use new, unglazed cups, which are then discarded. This custom apparently was in imitation of the Emperor, who reportedly used cups only once. Because every day is not New Year's day, this distich is misleading. Rodrigues wrote that the Japanese used five kinds of cups to serve
sake
to their guests: lacquered cups (gilded or plain); two of simple earthenware; one that was half or completely gilded or covered in silver (both inside and out); and another that was of earthenware but also gilded and silvered. Even more remarkable, these last cups were served on a three-legged tray that looked like:

“… a jagged seashore, with its entrances and exits like the bays and capes of a shore, … painted entirely blue, or the colour of the sea, and decorated with various patterns of flowers or small trees, especially the pine which grows along the coast …”
⁴⁹

31. Among us, no one drinks more than he wishes, and he is not persuaded by others; in Japan they insist so strongly that they cause some to throw up and others to become drunk
.

While intoxication and “competitive drinking” may have been deemed sinful in Europe, it did not stop many people from drinking to excess. Long after Frois was dead and buried, Europeans were still celebrating feast days or other holidays with impromptu drinking bouts. According to Schivelbusch,
⁵⁰
were it not for the widespread adoption of coffee in the eighteenth-century, countries such as Germany may never have become industrial power-houses.

Generally speaking, the Japanese do not drink
sake
during or after meals. Simply put, the Japanese generally drank to drink—and still drink to drink. Japanese men take pride in their drinking and many would not refuse a challenge to a drinking match. Frois' fellow Jesuit, Rodrigues, was dumbfounded:

It is also astonishing to note the various devices and means which the devil has taught them to encourage much wine drinking … They not only concoct a thousand kinds of tasty
sakana
(these are appetizing things to eat which encourage a man to drink) as incentives, but they also sometimes summon women dancers and singers and other types of depraved people, who, when they drink, challenge whomsoever they wish to partake as well; … Things
sometimes reach such a pass … that some of them challenge others to drink wine from hand-basins …
⁵¹

32. Among us, it is considered disgusting to drink from a soup, meat, or fish bowl; in Japan it is very common to empty one's soup bowl
⁵²
and drink from it
.

Another way to put this would be: We flavor our food with a little wine; they flavor their wine with a little food. Today, as in the past, the most popular variety of
sake
in Japan is
Junmai-shu
, which is highly acidic. This acidity may explain why it would taste good when drunk from the shell of a crab or a soup or fish bowl (also acidic), while wine, particularly red wine, would not.

Frois was so busy contrasting the crude materials of the Japanese
sake
cup and, worse yet, the yucky manner of drinking from “dirty dishes,” that he forgot to contrast the thimble-sized
sake
cup with the huge (by Japanese standards) tankard preferred by many Europeans.

33. Our everyday drinking water has to be cold and clear; among the Japanese, it has to be hot and should have tea powder that has been beaten into the water with a straw brush.
⁵³

The Japanese seldom drink plain water; tea is arguably their main source of water. Frois, however, describes but one way of making tea, using the expensive bright green powder now identified with the tea ceremony. Tea ordinarily was lightly steeped.

Frois might have written a more generally applicable description of how the Japanese drank water: “The water has to be hot and served either as tea, as medicine, flavored by barley, or be the left-over water from cooking noodles.”

Until recently, most Japanese of middle-age and older have worn heat wraps to keep their belly warm. Many still do. If ordinary cold water was, and still is, believed to be bad for digestion, cold spring water was considered quite capable of bringing on a stroke. In poetry, cold water came to be associated with the phrase
inochi-tori-ni naru
, a term meaning that indulging in something will cost you your life.
⁵⁴

34. Among us, the burnt rice at the bottom of the pan is thrown out or given to the dogs.
⁵⁵
in Japan it is served as a dessert or it is placed in the hot water that is drunk at the end of the meal
.

Okada
⁵⁶
explains that this is, in part, a reflection of Japanese respect for rice, which was considered more than a food. During Frois' time, a nobleman's fiefdom was valued and described in terms of potential rice harvest rather than acreage. Still, rice was not the sacred=imperial=Japanese object that it became later, when neo-Shinto nationalists argued that the only rice in the world worthy of the name was Japanese rice (
japonica
), which was derived from the body of the Sun Goddess
Amaterasu-omikami
. While the Japanese, facing imports, can still get excited about their rice, the stuff at the bottom of the cooker or, worse, the bowl, is no longer consumed religiously. Despite the high price of rice in Japan, a surprising amount of old rice ends up in the bowls of the
wan-chan
and
nyan-chan
, the dogs and cats of the house, respectively.

35. Among us, one begins drinking right after the meal starts; the Japanese begin serving their wine almost at the end of the meal
.

Frois is here contrasting formal meals. As noted above, the Japanese do not generally drink
sake
with dinner. Avila Giron wrote: “About halfway through the meal, along comes a page with hot wine in a flask, but does not pour it unless the diner holds out his cup, which, in Japan, may be no other than the bowl which covered the rice.”
⁵⁷
But even formal occasions offered more diversity in methods of drinking than Frois' contrast suggests.

36. Among us, one does not drink out of the porcelain [
bowl
] from which one has eaten soup or rice without first washing it; the Japanese dump the soup out of the rice bowl and then drink hot water from it
.

This contrast regarding water parallels the observation made in
#32
above regarding
sake
, which is drunk in the same manner. One contrast naming both liquids would have been sufficient.

37. Our quills for [
cleaning
] our teeth are very short; the sticks used by the Japanese are sometimes eight to nine inches
⁵⁸
long
.

Europeans used feather quills as disposable toothpicks. During Frois' time toothpicks of gold or silver became fashionable in Europe and were worn on hats and jackets.
⁵⁹
Japanese toothpicks were generally between three and fourteen inches in length. The short ones used today, called “fingernail toothpicks” (
tsuma-yoji
), first became popular during the Edo era (1608–1868). Japanese toothpicks are rectangular rather than round and are almost always made of bamboo. Arguably, anyone who has used both prefers the Japanese.

38. Among us it is a great offense and dishonor for a man to get drunk; in Japan they are proud of this, and when they ask, “What is your master doing?”, the reply is, “He's drunk.”

As noted above (
#31
), Christian Europe frowned on drunkenness, although as Montaigne
⁶⁰
pointed out, this did not stop Europeans from imbibing. “The Chinese and Japanese,” on the other hand, “do not consider drunkenness in banquets and revelries as something wrong, although they will not countenance violent intoxication, but this is rare among nobles.”
⁶¹
Let us add Koreans to this happy company.

39. We esteem dairy products, cheese, butter and marrow; the Japanese abhor all of this and they think it smells very badly
.

As previously noted (
#2
), the Japanese often spoke disparagingly of Europeans as “butter-stinking” (
bata-kusai
). Although the Japanese have acquired a taste, if not a fondness, for milk and flan (see footnote 10), they still eat relatively little sour cream or plain yogurt. Perhaps the higher incidence of lactose intolerance among Asians explains the Japanese dislike of dairy products.

40. We season our food with various spices; the Japanese use miso,
⁶²
which is rice and rotten grains mixed with salt
.

Spices were indeed central to the cuisine of Europe's rich and powerful, not to mention the Portuguese economy (the crown of Portugal reaped enormous profits from ships returning each year from India laden with pepper
⁶³
). The famous European chef, Cristoforo da Messibugo (d. 1547), used spices such as cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, nutmeg, mace, and coriander in over 80 percent of his recipes.
⁶⁴
As noted, spices also were added to wine to increase its shelf life and were understood as having medicinal properties (e.g. spiced food was good for the elderly but might produce lust in others).
⁶⁵

The
miso
spoken of by Frois here refers to the same bean curd used for soup. Fish might be marinated in miso, roasted eggplant flavored with a particularly sweet variety, and so forth. To a spice lover, Japanese
miso
is too plain, probably the plainest in Asia. Korean
miso
is more like a pungent French cheese and the Chinese have many wonderful fermented seasonings. But when it comes to the most instant form of
miso
—soy sauce—the Japanese variety surpasses most others by remaining simple. Even today, Japanese cooking entails limited spices, but the Japanese, like Americans, eat a lot of mild ethnic foods from around the world.

41. We avoid dog [
meat
] and eat beef; they avoid beef and are quite happy to eat dogs as medicine
.

The linkage to “medicine” clearly suggests that Frois knew that dog was not
usually
eaten by the Japanese, but rather was “medicine eating” (
kusurigui
) to beat
the summer thinning mentioned in the discussion of contrast
#24
above. The best known medicine eating, however, was a males-only, late fall barbecue of “mountain whale” (wild boar) or venison, which was said to restore the body's heat.