Recently indulged in Sengoku games, I recommend a physical book on the Sengoku theme "Living in Japan Sengoku". Akira Kurosawa read a lot of literature when he was shooting "Seven Samurai" and wanted to know how the samurai lived.
Eating is the most important activity of human beings. Only when you feed your mouth can you think. From China to Japan, how many powerful powers have been overthrown because they cannot fill their hungry mouths. Power must first be established on the mouth and then on the head. Only by controlling the mouth can the head be better controlled. The Warring States period was an era of extremely poor material. Japan, which was originally not rich in products, had a new low in grain output in this era. What are people eating in this era? Recipes for the poor and the rich. Let’s list two recipes:
One. Two pieces of small rice and boiled radish
Adding a plum to the rice is a very classy meal. .
2.Rice, a two-finger wide fish, a small dish of pickled radish, a cup of boiled wild vegetables in white water, a small bowl of miso soup
Someone can guess this Is there any relationship between the two recipes? Many people may think that these two shabby recipes are not very different, but they should be a person’s breakfast and dinner recipes on a certain day.
Actually, the first recipe is breakfast and lunch for the poor in the Warring States period, and the second recipe is the breakfast and dinner for the rich in the Warring States period. It seems that these two recipes are equally shabby, but the people in the Warring States Period really did eat such things and survive day by day. Farmers who eat small rice dream of eating rice like nobles.
All life in the Warring States period revolves around war. You eat to live, to live to fight, and to fight to eat better. Japan is a rice-producing country. Almost all the farmland in the country is growing rice, but rice is a luxury item for ordinary people who grow rice. In Kurosawa Akira's movie "Seven Samurai", the mountain thief covets the rice in the village below the mountain, and then goes down to grab the rice at the autumn harvest. In order to protect their rice, the farmers took out the only little rice in the whole village to recruit poor warriors to defend the village. The only condition they could recruit was to eat enough rice for a meal.
Although I don’t know why those unprosperous bandits don’t change to a richer place to grab, they just stare at this so poor that they have nothing but rice. There are no villages, but this also proves from the side that rice is a rare thing in this era. Later, the farmers in the village really recruited seven warriors of varying standards based on the condition of having rice to eat. Although these seven warriors said they were to keep one side safe, they were not paid, but they could eat rice. Food is somewhat attractive to them. After all, in that era, men were always hungry and it was a rare beauty to be full. Later, the warriors found that the villagers gave them all the rice, but they ate millet and wild vegetables, so they gave their share of the rice to the old, young, and children in the village.
Because the output of rice is very low, the white rice has become the main strategic material specially designated by the lords of various places. Farmers working hard in the fields to grow rice for a year are basically completing a task. The rice harvested is often sent to the lord’s castle as an annual tribute. They can only eat millet, nibble on radishes and wild vegetables. Some farmers even spend their entire lives. I have never tasted the taste of my own rice.
Later, Japan invaded China and occupied the three provinces of Northeast China, and ordinary people in the Northeast were not allowed to eat rice. Considering that at that time, the Kwantung Army was mostly Japanese farmers. It is estimated that the memory of the lords who took the rice and forbid their ancestors to eat is still in their bones. Now, I finally got mixed up with the identity of being able to eat rice, and the other way around The villain is determined and hates farmers for eating rice.
Just as the introduction of corn and potatoes increased the population of China, the thing that the Japanese can barely eat is radish. When radishes were first introduced to Japan, they only had the thickness of the fingers. After the hard cultivation of Japanese farmers, the radishes finally became the thickness of the arms. The radish is rich in nutrients and easy to grow, and soon became a farmer.The main food of the people, even the nobles also favor radishes, making it above the noble table, and almost to the point where there is no radish without a feast.
Even if the rich eat rice and the poor eat millet radish, there is still not enough food in mountainous countries. So in ancient times, the Japanese formed the habit of eating only two meals a day, breakfast and lunch. They had to work from morning to afternoon, so they had to eat to maintain physical strength. Evening was a rest time, and people didn’t have much entertainment at that time. As long as you go to bed early, you will not be hungry, so you can save food for a meal. This habit is not only obeyed by the peasants, from the emperor to the samurai, it has almost become an unwritten rule in the country, and the habit of not eating dinner is being implemented throughout the country. It's just that the nobles have a richer night life, so they are really hungry and can find some snacks to eat.
Oda Nobunaga hosted a state banquet for Tokugawa Ieyasu in Azuchi Castle
The daily lunch of the big names, with radish in the middle. The amount is very small, the same as today's Japanese food.
Some Japanese people insist on a split meal system when eating. There is a small table in front of each person with three dishes, one soup and one bowl of rice, even if it’s a banquet. Eat different things. The biggest difference between these rich and poor recipes is that they can eat a little bit of meat dishes. However, because they cannot eat meat, the rich can only make a fuss on fish and shellfish, which is already the most luxurious food they can eat. The strange thing is that, as an island country, Japan, whether noble or samurai, will not let go of seafood at will. Their meat dishes usually only have a small fish that is only enough to eat a few bites, or a few slices of pickled shellfish. class. Basically, fish and shellfish do not appear at the same time, and only one meat dish can appear in a meal. The rich have always maintained a diet of one meat, two vegetables and one bowl of soup. Even the Tokugawa shogun who unified the world hundreds of years later would only eat one meat dish for a meal.
The hardest food in the world, dried bonito.
The reason why the standard of three dishes and one soup is maintained is said to be because the early Japanese aristocrats tabooed four and dead homophony, so they would not engage in a standard meal of four dishes and one soup like the Chinese did. Of course, the rich occasionally eat something else to change their taste. In the historical drama "Takeda Shingen", Hojo, the commander of the Hojo family, once enjoyed the sea breeze by the sea, and simmered seafood such as shrimp and shellfish in a big pot.
Even if you are a lord, this kind of deliciousness is not just what you want. Usually they want to order a small wine or something unexpectedly during dinner. The side dishes that can be served are nothing more than small fingered salted fish or two pieces of pickled radishes. During the Warring States Period, the Japanese faithfully implemented the Zen canon of "not eating indiscriminately". They seldom eat anything other than dinner, and of course they have no conditions to eat. Even if you have money, the fish you eat at dinner is only enough for one meal. Real high-end fish and big fish are only eaten at celebrations such as weddings and Chinese New Year.
Later, Tokugawa Ieyasu who founded the Edo period, even after the turmoil of the United Warring States period, he still ate very frugally. He seldom eats fish. He eats some pickled radishes and rice every day. Once he was walking around at home and saw several maids complaining, so he went to see what happened. The maids said: "The food now is too shabby. The side dishes are only pickled radishes." Tokugawa Ieyasu, who is known for his gentleness, smiled and said, "Well, since you don’t like it, then don’t eat it. "Since then, the pickled radishes used by the maids as side dishes have been revoked, and the maids can only eat white rice. This story not only expresses Ieyasu's stinginess, but also shows us the recipe of the master of a country—rice and pickled radish, which makes a sense of bleakness spontaneously.
