On the 22nd of this month, Japan held the " Enthronement Ceremony Main Hall Ceremony" of Emperor Naruhito. This ceremony attracted attention at home and abroad in Japan. After the enthronement ceremony in the main hall, a "banquet ceremony" will be held from the evening of the 22nd to the 31st. The "Feast Ceremony" is a banquet ceremony to entertain domestic and foreign distinguished guests attending the ceremony. It is originally held as the last item of the enthronement ceremony held as a "state act", but it is scheduled to be held in the afternoon of the enthronement ceremony in the main hall on the 22nd. The "Congratulations Ceremony" was postponed to November 10 due to the disaster of Typhoon No. 19, resulting in the loss of the scheduled finale seat for this year's "Feast Ceremony".
Since the "Feast Ceremony" is a banquet for entertaining guests, naturally everyone will be curious about what the domestic and foreign guests ate at the banquet. There are many posts on the Internet these days listing the specific menus and specific dishes of the "Feast Ceremony". In fact, this information is easy to find, because the "Feast Ceremony" is a "state act" held with the national budget. Taxpayers' money is directly used to entertain domestic and foreign guests to eat. Naturally, the people must be informed of what they ate. explained.
The dishes for this "Feast Ceremony" announced by the Imperial Household Agency
This "Feast Ceremony" still follows the precedent of the Heisei enthronement ceremony, entertaining guests with Japanese dishes. You may think that this is a common dish when the Japanese royal family receives foreign guests. In fact, this is not the case, because a single banquet of the "Feast Ceremony" will invite 200-300 domestic and foreign guests, and in just one week, banquets of this size will be held about 5 times. Only the small number of palace chefs who usually serve the royal family cannot afford such a large-scale banquet in a short period of time. Therefore, the dishes in the "Feast Ceremony" are not actually cooked by the chefs in the Japanese palace, but are "outsourced" to chefs from prestigious Tokyo hotels such as the Prince Hotel. The "royal chefs" in the palace It only plays a supporting role. So some readers may be curious, what do the Japanese royal family usually eat? This article takes this topic as the core and talks about the "royal cook" and "royal meal" of the Japanese royal family.
The author first introduces the source of various information in this article. First of all, the official documents and historical materials of the Imperial Household Ministry (or the Imperial Household Agency after the war) are one of the main basis for this article. According to Japanese law, official documents that have been passed for a period of time have the obligation to be disclosed to the public, and the official documents of the Imperial Household are no exception. The Imperial Palace Library under the Imperial Household Agency's Publications Department preserves many official documents of the palace's dining rooms, including banquet menus. It is the most important first-hand information on palace banquets from the Meiji to Showa periods.
The Imperial Palace Dinner Menu in the Imperial Palace Collection The Imperial Palace Dinner Menu in the Taisho Years
As shown above, the author here lists a menu for the Imperial Palace Dinner Party in the Taisho Fifth Year (1916) more than 100 years ago. The menu consists of two parts, Japanese and French. The Japanese part of the dish names are basically in Chinese characters, and I believe everyone can understand them (on the contrary, the menus of Japanese Western restaurants nowadays are all a bunch of incomprehensible katakana loanwords). From this menu, we can find that the dinner parties in the Japanese palace at that time were all French food, and even the menu had to be prepared in French. Even today, palace dinners for foreign guests are still mainly based on French food, which shows the huge influence of French food on Japanese royal banquets.
However, what can be learned from official documents and historical materials is that most of them are about ceremonial banquets. Regarding the emperor and the royal family's daily diet and other "private" information, official documents and historical documents are not open to the public in principle. Regarding this part, the author mainly introduces it by referring to the records of some memoir-type books written by some imperial chefs who once served in the palace's dining room (the post-war dining room) after their retirement. Finally, this article is also mixed with some information similar to "internal gossip" that the author learned through classmates or teachers who worked at the Imperial Household Agency. Because it involves the daily life of the royal family, neither the memoirs of the royal chefs nor the "internal gossip" are absolutely reliable first-hand historical materials. They must be mixed with the narrator's subjective processing. This needs to be mentioned at the beginning of the article. illustrate.
On the 22nd of this month, Japan held the " Enthronement Ceremony Main Hall Ceremony" of Emperor Naruhito. This ceremony attracted attention at home and abroad in Japan. After the enthronement ceremony in the main hall, a "banquet ceremony" will be held from the evening of the 22nd to the 31st. The "Feast Ceremony" is a banquet ceremony to entertain domestic and foreign distinguished guests attending the ceremony. It is originally held as the last item of the enthronement ceremony held as a "state act", but it is scheduled to be held in the afternoon of the enthronement ceremony in the main hall on the 22nd. The "Congratulations Ceremony" was postponed to November 10 due to the disaster of Typhoon No. 19, resulting in the loss of the scheduled finale seat for this year's "Feast Ceremony".
Since the "Feast Ceremony" is a banquet for entertaining guests, naturally everyone will be curious about what the domestic and foreign guests ate at the banquet. There are many posts on the Internet these days listing the specific menus and specific dishes of the "Feast Ceremony". In fact, this information is easy to find, because the "Feast Ceremony" is a "state act" held with the national budget. Taxpayers' money is directly used to entertain domestic and foreign guests to eat. Naturally, the people must be informed of what they ate. explained.
The dishes for this "Feast Ceremony" announced by the Imperial Household Agency
This "Feast Ceremony" still follows the precedent of the Heisei enthronement ceremony, entertaining guests with Japanese dishes. You may think that this is a common dish when the Japanese royal family receives foreign guests. In fact, this is not the case, because a single banquet of the "Feast Ceremony" will invite 200-300 domestic and foreign guests, and in just one week, banquets of this size will be held about 5 times. Only the small number of palace chefs who usually serve the royal family cannot afford such a large-scale banquet in a short period of time. Therefore, the dishes in the "Feast Ceremony" are not actually cooked by the chefs in the Japanese palace, but are "outsourced" to chefs from prestigious Tokyo hotels such as the Prince Hotel. The "royal chefs" in the palace It only plays a supporting role. So some readers may be curious, what do the Japanese royal family usually eat? This article takes this topic as the core and talks about the "royal cook" and "royal meal" of the Japanese royal family.
The author first introduces the source of various information in this article. First of all, the official documents and historical materials of the Imperial Household Ministry (or the Imperial Household Agency after the war) are one of the main basis for this article. According to Japanese law, official documents that have been passed for a period of time have the obligation to be disclosed to the public, and the official documents of the Imperial Household are no exception. The Imperial Palace Library under the Imperial Household Agency's Publications Department preserves many official documents of the palace's dining rooms, including banquet menus. It is the most important first-hand information on palace banquets from the Meiji to Showa periods.
The Imperial Palace Dinner Menu in the Imperial Palace Collection The Imperial Palace Dinner Menu in the Taisho Years
As shown above, the author here lists a menu for the Imperial Palace Dinner Party in the Taisho Fifth Year (1916) more than 100 years ago. The menu consists of two parts, Japanese and French. The Japanese part of the dish names are basically in Chinese characters, and I believe everyone can understand them (on the contrary, the menus of Japanese Western restaurants nowadays are all a bunch of incomprehensible katakana loanwords). From this menu, we can find that the dinner parties in the Japanese palace at that time were all French food, and even the menu had to be prepared in French. Even today, palace dinners for foreign guests are still mainly based on French food, which shows the huge influence of French food on Japanese royal banquets.
However, what can be learned from official documents and historical materials is that most of them are about ceremonial banquets. Regarding the emperor and the royal family's daily diet and other "private" information, official documents and historical documents are not open to the public in principle. Regarding this part, the author mainly introduces it by referring to the records of some memoir-type books written by some imperial chefs who once served in the palace's dining room (the post-war dining room) after their retirement. Finally, this article is also mixed with some information similar to "internal gossip" that the author learned through classmates or teachers who worked at the Imperial Household Agency. Because it involves the daily life of the royal family, neither the memoirs of the royal chefs nor the "internal gossip" are absolutely reliable first-hand historical materials. They must be mixed with the narrator's subjective processing. This needs to be mentioned at the beginning of the article. illustrate.
Imperial Chefs in the Imperial Palace
Today, the " Imperial Chefs " who cook daily for the Emperor and the royal family in the Palace are officially called " Chefs of the Imperial Household Agency's Dining Section", and their identities are national civil servants affiliated with the Imperial Household Agency. Speaking of the staff of the Imperial Household Agency, I feel that many domestic readers are interested in the Japanese royal family. In particular, many readers of articles about the experiences of the two generations of empresses Masako or Michiko after marrying into the royal family, many readers will feel that , many of the staff of the Imperial Household Agency are from the old aristocratic families of Japan before the war, and they are a group with conservative ideas and concepts. In fact, this is not the case. Although the Imperial Household Agency has to deal with affairs related to the royal family, its speech or handling of affairs is indeed cautious and conservative compared to other government agencies. However, the Imperial Household Agency is essentially just a subordinate agency of the Japanese Cabinet Office, 99% of which are ordinary national civil servants (only a few attendants, female officials, housekeepers, and officials in charge of royal ceremonies are hired with royal court fees) , not included in the sequence of national civil servants), and the scope of responsibilities of these national civil servants can be described as diverse. Those who manage the tombs of past emperors and royal documents, those who are responsible for the maintenance of royal cars and carriages and the care of horses, and those who operate royal pastures and take care of potted plants , even the fishermen who fish with ospreys on the Nagara River in Gifu Prefecture are also national civil servants under the Imperial Household Agency. They come from all walks of life, and the protagonist of this article, the imperial chef, is naturally one of them.
The banquet class in the palace, which governs the royal diet and palace banquets, mainly consists of two groups of people. One is the "chef" who is responsible for cooking dishes as mentioned above, and the other is responsible for managing tableware, decorating the restaurant, serving and closing dishes, etc. The "main meal" of culinary affairs. According to data from the end of the last century, from the 1970s to the 1990s, the two groups totaled about 50 people. Among the chefs, they can be divided into 5 departments. The first department has about 7 people, responsible for cooking Japanese food, the second department also has about 7 people, responsible for cooking Western food, mainly French food, the 3rd and 4th departments There are 2 to 3 people in each department, respectively responsible for making Japanese confectionery and making Western confectionery. The fifth department is responsible for the diet of other royal members including the East Palace Imperial Palace. In addition, there are 1,2 chefs responsible for preparing other dishes including Chinese food.
During the post-war period, Chinese food also appeared on the Emperor's table. According to records in Showa 59 (1984), the Emperor of Showa had a total of 13 times of Chinese fried rice, 10 times of spring rolls, and 9 times of Shaomai. and 6 fried dumplings. Many people may think, this is what the Emperor of Japan eats? In fact, as shown in the picture below, for a period after the war, more upscale-looking Chinese dishes were served on the royal banquet table. However, due to oil smoke, sanitation and other reasons, as well as the insufficient firepower of the palace kitchen to cook many Chinese dishes that require strong fire, high-end Chinese food has gradually faded away from the main dishes of the Japanese royal chefs. I only occasionally make some simple Chinese food suitable for Japanese tastes such as dumplings, siomai, sweet pork, hibiscus crab, etc. for the emperor to change his taste.
Chinese food appeared on the imperial menu in the early postwar period
Where is the kitchen in the Imperial Palace of Japan today? Let me give you a brief explanation by borrowing a floor plan of the Japanese Imperial Palace palace that the author took. Due to the size of the picture, the words in the picture may be difficult to read. The location circled in red is the kitchen where the Imperial Household Agency's meal class is located. What is drawn in the yellow circle is the position between the pines in the main hall of the Imperial Palace where the enthronement ceremony will be held.
The imperial palace kitchen, for reasons such as convenience in serving food, was set up in the Fengming Hall, a large restaurant where formal dinner parties in the palace were held (the blue circle in the picture, the name of the hall is taken from the "Fengming Festival" held after the Daochang Festival) The name of the banquet is the large dining hall of the Meiji Palace that burned down at the end of World War II, also known as Homeiden) and the small restaurant "Ren Sui" (green circle in the picture, because this palace held small banquets, especially internal banquets of the imperial family) It is the center of the room adjacent to Mount Momiji on the northeast side of the palace, named "Continuous Green" (meaning "continuous green"). Although the interior photos of Fengmeiden and Liancui are easy to see and are occasionally released to the public, the author has never seen the interior of the Imperial Palace kitchen. We can only speculate based on the recollections of some chefs.
In the memoirs of many chefs, the deepest impression of the palace kitchen is its "brightness", because most of the palace chefs worked in some high-end hotels and restaurants before entering the palace. Most of the kitchens in hotels and restaurants are located in dark rooms with no external lighting. Therefore, chefs who first came to the palace kitchen were firstly impressed by its lighting.
Secondly, in the memories of chefs, descriptions such as "neat" and "spotless" appear very frequently. Before entering the kitchen every day, the chef must take a shower and change some clothes and shoes from head to toe. Cleaning the kitchen environment at any time is naturally the basis of the basics. Because after cleaning with water, the moist environment is considered easy to breed bacteria. In principle, the palace kitchen must use a waterless dry cleaning mode to clean the interior. In addition, the kitchen also adjusts the temperature of each room according to the different temperatures required for different dishes. For example, a special low-temperature cold room is set up for chefs making pudding and other Western desserts.
Floor plan of the Imperial Palace
The Emperor's daily diet
Since the palace kitchen has such strict requirements for the cooking environment, many people must think that the daily diet of the Japanese royal family must be very luxurious? In fact, this is not the case. The daily diet of the Japanese royal family, especially the emperor and empress, is actually very "common people". As mentioned above, when eating Chinese food, most of them are very simple dishes such as fried rice and siomai. The most direct reason why the emperor's diet is so "simple" is actually lack of money.
The current emperor and the "inner court royal family" including the empress (can be considered to be direct blood relatives of the emperor who did not have a separate palace family). The current imperial family includes four people: Empress Masako, Emperor Akihito , Empress Michiko, and Prince Aikouchi. ), the annual expenses must be paid from the fixed imperial fees. According to the staff of the Food and Beverage Section, the budget currently handed over to the Food and Beverage Section every year to provide daily meals for the emperor and the imperial family is actually very limited. The meat, eggs, and milk ingredients that the palace eats daily are purchased from the Goryo Ranch (a ranch dedicated to the imperial family) in Tochigi Prefecture, so it can be said to be self-sufficient to a certain extent. However, aquatic products must be purchased every day from the fish market in Tokyo (the former Tsukiji Market, today's Toyosu Market). Therefore, most of the aquatic products on the royal table are relatively common fish, such as sea bream, sea urchin, and abalone. High-end seafood can only be eaten after a while. However, it is said that the situation was much better before the 1970s, because at that time, high-end ingredients such as matsutake mushrooms were sent to the royal family from all over the country, which largely made up for the tight food budget of the royal family at that time. However, after the 1980s, the Imperial Household Agency began not to accept "offerings" of high-priced items in principle, so this main source of high-end ingredients for the royal family was cut off. Now, even if you are the emperor, you can only eat as much as the common people.
Although the ingredients of the emperor's daily diet are relatively "common people", his cooking methods and diet management are very sophisticated. The chefs in the meal class will carefully calculate the number of calories and nutritional balance that the emperor consumes every day. If the emperor did not finish the last meal, he will try to make up for the missing calories in the next meal. In the later years of Emperor Showa's life, the emperor's daily caloric intake set in the Taisho Course was about 1,600 calories. Although it was enough for the average elderly, considering that the emperor had to deal with various official duties every day even in his advanced age. , this number is not too much. In addition, the meal will try to consider the balance of the emperor's three meals a day. Taking Emperor Showa as an example, breakfast every day after the war was mainly Western-style breakfast. For the remaining two meals, lunch and dinner, a balance between Western and Western food will be considered. For example, if you eat Western food at lunch, you will eat Japanese food in the evening, and vice versa.
Oryo Ranch supplies bottled milk to the Imperial Family, which can be purchased at some shops within the Imperial Household Agency. In fact, it doesn’t taste much different from regular milk. However, compared to royal families around the world, the Japanese royal family is definitely "poor" and often has to save money on ingredients.
In addition, there are many strange rules about the daily diet in the palace. For example, in principle, all ingredients brought to the emperor must be eaten (or should be eaten). At that time, there was a new cook who had just arrived in the palace and was not aware of all the dietary rules in the palace. When he served the food to Emperor Showa, he did not put the "Kashiwa mochi" (a kind of red bean wrapped in cypress leaves seeds). The leaves of the stuffed Japanese confectionery (pictured below) were removed and served to the emperor. According to common sense, everyone would naturally pick off the leaves before eating them, but Emperor Showa quietly ate the cypress leaves until only the veins were left. After clearing away the tableware, all the staff in the meal department were extremely frightened when they looked at the leaves left over from Emperor Showa's meal. So the new chef was naturally scolded bloody. However, the new chef was still not convinced. He thought that when the emperor was dining, there were naturally female officials and attendants waiting on him. Didn't anyone tell the emperor that he should pick the leaves before eating them? Everyone watched the emperor eat the leaves. , this can’t be blamed on me alone. In fact, this involves another rule in the Japanese palace. The attendants and female officials around the emperor can only answer the emperor's questions when the emperor takes the initiative to ask questions, but they cannot actively advise the emperor on what to do. If Emperor Showa asked the people around him whether this should be eaten with the leaves, people would naturally tell him that the leaves should be removed before eating. However, if you take the initiative to speak without waiting for the Emperor to ask, it will be considered that the Emperor does not even have this common sense (in fact, he does not...). This is a disrespectful act that must not be done to Mikimi. So under various strange rules, everyone could only watch helplessly as the emperor ate the leaves one by one.
Under this strange rule, the inedible parts of various ingredients will be removed when they are served to the emperor. Meat dishes of poultry and beasts cannot be cooked with the bones (although it is expected that the emperor will not swallow the bones), fish Except for a few small fish that can be eaten with the bones, the bones must be removed. For fruits, the seeds need to be removed. Emperor Showa especially loved watermelon, so picking out all the watermelon seeds for the emperor every summer became an extremely labor-intensive task during the meal. It is said that the only fruit that can be served to the emperor without removing the seeds is cherries. This is because the royal family has a do-it-yourself method of "elegantly" removing the pits of cherries passed down from generation to generation. (This is such a weird rule of the Japanese royal family. many).
Kashiwamochi
As shown in the picture below, the imperial palace where the emperor lived was actually several hundred meters away from the kitchen in the palace mentioned above. The Imperial Palace of Akasaka outside the Imperial Palace (where Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako, and the Akishino Palace, Mikasa Palace, and Takamatsu Palace families currently live here) is even further away from the palace. In order to ensure that the dishes do not lose their flavor due to cooling during transportation from the palace to the imperial palace, the chefs in the dining class also put a lot of effort into it.
As shown in the picture, the red circle is the imperial palace where Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko lived during the Heisei era (it is now called Fukiage Sento Imperial Palace, and they still live here before moving early next year). The Fukiage Omiya Imperial Palace in the yellow circle was the residence of Emperor Showa and Empress Kojun in the late Showa era. The large building with a sky blue roof below is the palace where the kitchen is located.
First of all, when designing the Imperial Palace and the palaces of each palace family, the Imperial Household Agency installed small kitchens in them. When it's time to eat every day, the large meal department will send one chef and two main chefs to arrange the table and clear the tableware. The semi-finished dishes, which are about 80% prepared, will be sent by car to the imperial palace or palace. While the main chef is setting up the restaurant, the chef will Use the kitchen located in the Imperial Palace to complete the final cooking process of the dishes. In this way, the dishes served to the royal family members seemed to have been freshly cooked on site instead of being transported over long distances. It is also worth mentioning that royal members sometimes use their own kitchens to cook for themselves.For example, shortly after the birth of the current Naruhito Crown Princess Michiko, who for the first time personally raised children (according to pre-war tradition, the emperor, empress, crown prince and consort could not personally raise young children), she used The kitchen of the East Palace Palace cooked for Deren himself. This seems to have become a good story. It is said that Crown Prince Akihito would bake his own bread for breakfast when he was single. In addition, he would often follow various cooking magazines to learn a few dishes and cook a meal himself. It can be said that Akihito and Michiko are much more open-minded in cooking than the Showa Emperor and his wife.
During the period of the Crown Princess, Princess Michiko, who personally cooked for her children in the kitchen of the East Palace Palace,
the Emperor and Empress did not live in the Tokyo Imperial Palace all year round. During the winter and summer seasons, the Daishiko will also send personnel to follow the emperor and empress to Hayama, Nasu, Suzaki and other royal residences to serve the emperor and empress who go to escape the cold or summer. The palace will also dispatch cars every day to transport the food in the palace to the royal grounds. In addition, the emperor and empress make many visits to various parts of Japan throughout the year. When going out, there are many situations where you have to eat outdoors or while traveling. At this time, it became the job of the chef of the large meal section to make portable lunch boxes for the emperor. Among this kind of portable convenience, sandwiches seem to have been a favorite food of the Emperors of Showa and Heisei. In addition, during his visits, the emperor's schedule is often very tight, down to the minute, so the time for meals is also very limited and precise. In order to ensure that the emperor's schedule was not delayed by meals, controlling the temperature of food and drinks became a science. The chef would usually go to the place where the emperor had reserved a meal in advance, cook the dishes first, and control the temperature to a range suitable for immediate consumption. Making tea was even more troublesome. The chef even had to follow the emperor's meal steps and temporarily soak the teacups in a large amount of ice water. To quickly lower the temperature of the tea to ensure that the emperor can drink it at any time.
In addition, everyone has their likes and dislikes about various foods, and everyone is hungry in the middle of the night and wants to eat a late-night snack. What should the royal family do when they encounter food they don’t like or want to add extra food? This requires a detailed analysis of the specific situation. Emperor Showa's likes and dislikes about food seem to be well understood by people who attend the dining class. He likes pasta, hates spicy and heavy food, can't stand food that is too hot, etc. Emperor Showa's dining habits can be said to be very famous. In addition, it is said that the two emperors of Akira and Heisei never took the initiative to express what they wanted to eat on a certain day, which was similar to "ordering food". However, it is said that the reputation of the Akishino Palace family seems to be poor within Daizen. It may also be because there are relatively many children in the family, and the phenomenon of picky eaters and requests for extra meals has always been relatively common in the imperial family.
Ceremonies and banquets
After talking about the daily diet of the Japanese emperor for so long, at the end of this article, the author brings the topic back to the rituals and banquets in the palace to take a look at the palace diet on these "non-daily" occasions. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, in fact, unlike the "banquet ceremony" held after the emperor's enthronement ceremony in the main hall, where Japanese food was used to entertain guests from all over the world, the traditional palace dinner party for the Japanese royal family to entertain foreign guests was based on Western food, especially French food. This is why?
In fact, the introduction of Western food in modern palace banquets can be traced back to the early Meiji period. According to the menu in Meiji 8 (1875) below, it can be seen that as early as more than 140 years ago, the banquets in the palace at that time were already based on Western food. Now, the menu is filled with beef and mutton dishes that the Japanese aren’t traditionally used to eating, and there’s even seven-faced bird (a.k.a. turkey). The reason for this situation at that time can be said to be mostly to show the "civilized and enlightened" side of Japan's food to foreign guests.
The occupation of French food in Japanese palace banquets was mainly a matter after the Taisho period, and the role of one character cannot be ignored.This is Akiyama Tokuzo, who has long dominated the palace's dining room (section) from Taisho to Showa. Some readers may have seen a movie called "The Emperor's Royal Chef" starring Takeru Sato and Hana Kuroki a few years ago. (Japanese "The Emperor's Cuisine") Japanese drama. In the play, Akiyama Atsuzou, played by Takeru Sato, who went to France to study French cuisine and then entered the palace's dining room, was based on Akiyama Touzou. Akiyama was an authoritative figure in Japanese French cuisine at that time, and was also the object of desire for all Japanese Western chefs at that time. In the palace's large dining room (class), Akiyama also had absolute authority for a long time, and was even mentioned in the memoirs written by many chefs. , Akiyama would be called "Emperor Akiyama", which shows his great influence. Under the leadership of this French cuisine expert, every New Year's Day dinner within the royal family (which is equivalent to our New Year's Eve dinner), the dishes are changed from traditional Japanese food to French food.
Of course, this has also aroused opposition from some conservatives who value tradition. In Taisho 6 (1917), when Akiyama became the head chef of the Daishinryo, it was at a time when the First World War was about to end and the Japan-British alliance was still in effect. It can also be said that it was a period when Japan had the highest influence in the international community and the most positive and open social atmosphere. In international diplomacy after the end of World War I, table diplomacy at banquets was an important part that cannot be ignored. In an overall positive and open society, combined with the diplomatic environment at the time, it became an inevitable trend for palace banquets to be in line with European standards.
Generally speaking, a formal palace dinner party to receive foreign dignitaries has about 150 participants. Although compared to about 250 participants and about 5 consecutive "banquet ceremonies", this The numbers may not seem like a lot. However, even so, the entire meal class must be mobilized to cope with it. In addition to the chefs who prepare the dishes, the main chefs cannot be idle either. The number of tableware used in a palace dinner alone is as high as more than 4,000. The arrangement, cleaning, placement, and recycling are undoubtedly a huge workload for a main meal with only about 20 people.
Meiji 8 Imperial Banquet Menu
Japanese Drama "The Emperor's Chef" Poster
Before the imperial dinner party, the main meal with tableware was prepared in the dining room of the large dining room. The image comes from a promotional video of the Imperial Household Agency during the Showa era. Because of the age, the clarity is really poor.
In May of this year, a palace dinner party was held for US President Trump who was visiting Japan. The venue was located in the Homeiden Hall of the Imperial Palace. Most of the seats at palace dinner parties are arranged in this horizontal E-shape.
Although French cuisine has long been the first choice for formal palace banquets for entertaining foreign guests, this does not mean that traditional Japanese cuisine has withdrawn from the stage of palace ceremonies. Whenever there are traditional sacrificial activities in the palace, especially at the end of the year and the beginning of the year when there are intensive sacrificial rituals, it is basically the busiest time of the year for the meal class. The busiest among them is not the second department responsible for cooking Western food, but the third department responsible for making Japanese confectionery. This is because during sacrificial activities, what is eaten as ceremonial food or offered as an offering to the gods is traditional Japanese cuisine with traditional Japanese confectionery as its core. Starting from the end of every year, basically all the staff in the dining class will be mobilized to start work on the third section, which is responsible for making Japanese confectionery. In modern times, while continuing to pursue Westernization, tradition is still an integral part of the Japanese royal family. Among them, palace rituals centered on religious sacrificial activities are the top priority of the Japanese royal family tradition. In this sense, The role of Japanese cuisine in the palace cannot be ignored.
In the memoirs of many chefs, the deepest impression of the palace kitchen is its "brightness", because most of the palace chefs worked in some high-end hotels and restaurants before entering the palace. Most of the kitchens in hotels and restaurants are located in dark rooms with no external lighting. Therefore, chefs who first came to the palace kitchen were firstly impressed by its lighting.
Secondly, in the memories of chefs, descriptions such as "neat" and "spotless" appear very frequently. Before entering the kitchen every day, the chef must take a shower and change some clothes and shoes from head to toe. Cleaning the kitchen environment at any time is naturally the basis of the basics. Because after cleaning with water, the moist environment is considered easy to breed bacteria. In principle, the palace kitchen must use a waterless dry cleaning mode to clean the interior. In addition, the kitchen also adjusts the temperature of each room according to the different temperatures required for different dishes. For example, a special low-temperature cold room is set up for chefs making pudding and other Western desserts.
Floor plan of the Imperial Palace
The Emperor's daily diet
Since the palace kitchen has such strict requirements for the cooking environment, many people must think that the daily diet of the Japanese royal family must be very luxurious? In fact, this is not the case. The daily diet of the Japanese royal family, especially the emperor and empress, is actually very "common people". As mentioned above, when eating Chinese food, most of them are very simple dishes such as fried rice and siomai. The most direct reason why the emperor's diet is so "simple" is actually lack of money.
The current emperor and the "inner court royal family" including the empress (can be considered to be direct blood relatives of the emperor who did not have a separate palace family). The current imperial family includes four people: Empress Masako, Emperor Akihito , Empress Michiko, and Prince Aikouchi. ), the annual expenses must be paid from the fixed imperial fees. According to the staff of the Food and Beverage Section, the budget currently handed over to the Food and Beverage Section every year to provide daily meals for the emperor and the imperial family is actually very limited. The meat, eggs, and milk ingredients that the palace eats daily are purchased from the Goryo Ranch (a ranch dedicated to the imperial family) in Tochigi Prefecture, so it can be said to be self-sufficient to a certain extent. However, aquatic products must be purchased every day from the fish market in Tokyo (the former Tsukiji Market, today's Toyosu Market). Therefore, most of the aquatic products on the royal table are relatively common fish, such as sea bream, sea urchin, and abalone. High-end seafood can only be eaten after a while. However, it is said that the situation was much better before the 1970s, because at that time, high-end ingredients such as matsutake mushrooms were sent to the royal family from all over the country, which largely made up for the tight food budget of the royal family at that time. However, after the 1980s, the Imperial Household Agency began not to accept "offerings" of high-priced items in principle, so this main source of high-end ingredients for the royal family was cut off. Now, even if you are the emperor, you can only eat as much as the common people.
Although the ingredients of the emperor's daily diet are relatively "common people", his cooking methods and diet management are very sophisticated. The chefs in the meal class will carefully calculate the number of calories and nutritional balance that the emperor consumes every day. If the emperor did not finish the last meal, he will try to make up for the missing calories in the next meal. In the later years of Emperor Showa's life, the emperor's daily caloric intake set in the Taisho Course was about 1,600 calories. Although it was enough for the average elderly, considering that the emperor had to deal with various official duties every day even in his advanced age. , this number is not too much. In addition, the meal will try to consider the balance of the emperor's three meals a day. Taking Emperor Showa as an example, breakfast every day after the war was mainly Western-style breakfast. For the remaining two meals, lunch and dinner, a balance between Western and Western food will be considered. For example, if you eat Western food at lunch, you will eat Japanese food in the evening, and vice versa.
Oryo Ranch supplies bottled milk to the Imperial Family, which can be purchased at some shops within the Imperial Household Agency. In fact, it doesn’t taste much different from regular milk. However, compared to royal families around the world, the Japanese royal family is definitely "poor" and often has to save money on ingredients.
In addition, there are many strange rules about the daily diet in the palace. For example, in principle, all ingredients brought to the emperor must be eaten (or should be eaten). At that time, there was a new cook who had just arrived in the palace and was not aware of all the dietary rules in the palace. When he served the food to Emperor Showa, he did not put the "Kashiwa mochi" (a kind of red bean wrapped in cypress leaves seeds). The leaves of the stuffed Japanese confectionery (pictured below) were removed and served to the emperor. According to common sense, everyone would naturally pick off the leaves before eating them, but Emperor Showa quietly ate the cypress leaves until only the veins were left. After clearing away the tableware, all the staff in the meal department were extremely frightened when they looked at the leaves left over from Emperor Showa's meal. So the new chef was naturally scolded bloody. However, the new chef was still not convinced. He thought that when the emperor was dining, there were naturally female officials and attendants waiting on him. Didn't anyone tell the emperor that he should pick the leaves before eating them? Everyone watched the emperor eat the leaves. , this can’t be blamed on me alone. In fact, this involves another rule in the Japanese palace. The attendants and female officials around the emperor can only answer the emperor's questions when the emperor takes the initiative to ask questions, but they cannot actively advise the emperor on what to do. If Emperor Showa asked the people around him whether this should be eaten with the leaves, people would naturally tell him that the leaves should be removed before eating. However, if you take the initiative to speak without waiting for the Emperor to ask, it will be considered that the Emperor does not even have this common sense (in fact, he does not...). This is a disrespectful act that must not be done to Mikimi. So under various strange rules, everyone could only watch helplessly as the emperor ate the leaves one by one.
Under this strange rule, the inedible parts of various ingredients will be removed when they are served to the emperor. Meat dishes of poultry and beasts cannot be cooked with the bones (although it is expected that the emperor will not swallow the bones), fish Except for a few small fish that can be eaten with the bones, the bones must be removed. For fruits, the seeds need to be removed. Emperor Showa especially loved watermelon, so picking out all the watermelon seeds for the emperor every summer became an extremely labor-intensive task during the meal. It is said that the only fruit that can be served to the emperor without removing the seeds is cherries. This is because the royal family has a do-it-yourself method of "elegantly" removing the pits of cherries passed down from generation to generation. (This is such a weird rule of the Japanese royal family. many).
Kashiwamochi
As shown in the picture below, the imperial palace where the emperor lived was actually several hundred meters away from the kitchen in the palace mentioned above. The Imperial Palace of Akasaka outside the Imperial Palace (where Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako, and the Akishino Palace, Mikasa Palace, and Takamatsu Palace families currently live here) is even further away from the palace. In order to ensure that the dishes do not lose their flavor due to cooling during transportation from the palace to the imperial palace, the chefs in the dining class also put a lot of effort into it.
As shown in the picture, the red circle is the imperial palace where Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko lived during the Heisei era (it is now called Fukiage Sento Imperial Palace, and they still live here before moving early next year). The Fukiage Omiya Imperial Palace in the yellow circle was the residence of Emperor Showa and Empress Kojun in the late Showa era. The large building with a sky blue roof below is the palace where the kitchen is located.
First of all, when designing the Imperial Palace and the palaces of each palace family, the Imperial Household Agency installed small kitchens in them. When it's time to eat every day, the large meal department will send one chef and two main chefs to arrange the table and clear the tableware. The semi-finished dishes, which are about 80% prepared, will be sent by car to the imperial palace or palace. While the main chef is setting up the restaurant, the chef will Use the kitchen located in the Imperial Palace to complete the final cooking process of the dishes. In this way, the dishes served to the royal family members seemed to have been freshly cooked on site instead of being transported over long distances. It is also worth mentioning that royal members sometimes use their own kitchens to cook for themselves.For example, shortly after the birth of the current Naruhito Crown Princess Michiko, who for the first time personally raised children (according to pre-war tradition, the emperor, empress, crown prince and consort could not personally raise young children), she used The kitchen of the East Palace Palace cooked for Deren himself. This seems to have become a good story. It is said that Crown Prince Akihito would bake his own bread for breakfast when he was single. In addition, he would often follow various cooking magazines to learn a few dishes and cook a meal himself. It can be said that Akihito and Michiko are much more open-minded in cooking than the Showa Emperor and his wife.
During the period of the Crown Princess, Princess Michiko, who personally cooked for her children in the kitchen of the East Palace Palace,
the Emperor and Empress did not live in the Tokyo Imperial Palace all year round. During the winter and summer seasons, the Daishiko will also send personnel to follow the emperor and empress to Hayama, Nasu, Suzaki and other royal residences to serve the emperor and empress who go to escape the cold or summer. The palace will also dispatch cars every day to transport the food in the palace to the royal grounds. In addition, the emperor and empress make many visits to various parts of Japan throughout the year. When going out, there are many situations where you have to eat outdoors or while traveling. At this time, it became the job of the chef of the large meal section to make portable lunch boxes for the emperor. Among this kind of portable convenience, sandwiches seem to have been a favorite food of the Emperors of Showa and Heisei. In addition, during his visits, the emperor's schedule is often very tight, down to the minute, so the time for meals is also very limited and precise. In order to ensure that the emperor's schedule was not delayed by meals, controlling the temperature of food and drinks became a science. The chef would usually go to the place where the emperor had reserved a meal in advance, cook the dishes first, and control the temperature to a range suitable for immediate consumption. Making tea was even more troublesome. The chef even had to follow the emperor's meal steps and temporarily soak the teacups in a large amount of ice water. To quickly lower the temperature of the tea to ensure that the emperor can drink it at any time.
In addition, everyone has their likes and dislikes about various foods, and everyone is hungry in the middle of the night and wants to eat a late-night snack. What should the royal family do when they encounter food they don’t like or want to add extra food? This requires a detailed analysis of the specific situation. Emperor Showa's likes and dislikes about food seem to be well understood by people who attend the dining class. He likes pasta, hates spicy and heavy food, can't stand food that is too hot, etc. Emperor Showa's dining habits can be said to be very famous. In addition, it is said that the two emperors of Akira and Heisei never took the initiative to express what they wanted to eat on a certain day, which was similar to "ordering food". However, it is said that the reputation of the Akishino Palace family seems to be poor within Daizen. It may also be because there are relatively many children in the family, and the phenomenon of picky eaters and requests for extra meals has always been relatively common in the imperial family.
Ceremonies and banquets
After talking about the daily diet of the Japanese emperor for so long, at the end of this article, the author brings the topic back to the rituals and banquets in the palace to take a look at the palace diet on these "non-daily" occasions. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, in fact, unlike the "banquet ceremony" held after the emperor's enthronement ceremony in the main hall, where Japanese food was used to entertain guests from all over the world, the traditional palace dinner party for the Japanese royal family to entertain foreign guests was based on Western food, especially French food. This is why?
In fact, the introduction of Western food in modern palace banquets can be traced back to the early Meiji period. According to the menu in Meiji 8 (1875) below, it can be seen that as early as more than 140 years ago, the banquets in the palace at that time were already based on Western food. Now, the menu is filled with beef and mutton dishes that the Japanese aren’t traditionally used to eating, and there’s even seven-faced bird (a.k.a. turkey). The reason for this situation at that time can be said to be mostly to show the "civilized and enlightened" side of Japan's food to foreign guests.
The occupation of French food in Japanese palace banquets was mainly a matter after the Taisho period, and the role of one character cannot be ignored.This is Akiyama Tokuzo, who has long dominated the palace's dining room (section) from Taisho to Showa. Some readers may have seen a movie called "The Emperor's Royal Chef" starring Takeru Sato and Hana Kuroki a few years ago. (Japanese "The Emperor's Cuisine") Japanese drama. In the play, Akiyama Atsuzou, played by Takeru Sato, who went to France to study French cuisine and then entered the palace's dining room, was based on Akiyama Touzou. Akiyama was an authoritative figure in Japanese French cuisine at that time, and was also the object of desire for all Japanese Western chefs at that time. In the palace's large dining room (class), Akiyama also had absolute authority for a long time, and was even mentioned in the memoirs written by many chefs. , Akiyama would be called "Emperor Akiyama", which shows his great influence. Under the leadership of this French cuisine expert, every New Year's Day dinner within the royal family (which is equivalent to our New Year's Eve dinner), the dishes are changed from traditional Japanese food to French food.
Of course, this has also aroused opposition from some conservatives who value tradition. In Taisho 6 (1917), when Akiyama became the head chef of the Daishinryo, it was at a time when the First World War was about to end and the Japan-British alliance was still in effect. It can also be said that it was a period when Japan had the highest influence in the international community and the most positive and open social atmosphere. In international diplomacy after the end of World War I, table diplomacy at banquets was an important part that cannot be ignored. In an overall positive and open society, combined with the diplomatic environment at the time, it became an inevitable trend for palace banquets to be in line with European standards.
Generally speaking, a formal palace dinner party to receive foreign dignitaries has about 150 participants. Although compared to about 250 participants and about 5 consecutive "banquet ceremonies", this The numbers may not seem like a lot. However, even so, the entire meal class must be mobilized to cope with it. In addition to the chefs who prepare the dishes, the main chefs cannot be idle either. The number of tableware used in a palace dinner alone is as high as more than 4,000. The arrangement, cleaning, placement, and recycling are undoubtedly a huge workload for a main meal with only about 20 people.
Meiji 8 Imperial Banquet Menu
Japanese Drama "The Emperor's Chef" Poster
Before the imperial dinner party, the main meal with tableware was prepared in the dining room of the large dining room. The image comes from a promotional video of the Imperial Household Agency during the Showa era. Because of the age, the clarity is really poor.
In May of this year, a palace dinner party was held for US President Trump who was visiting Japan. The venue was located in the Homeiden Hall of the Imperial Palace. Most of the seats at palace dinner parties are arranged in this horizontal E-shape.
Although French cuisine has long been the first choice for formal palace banquets for entertaining foreign guests, this does not mean that traditional Japanese cuisine has withdrawn from the stage of palace ceremonies. Whenever there are traditional sacrificial activities in the palace, especially at the end of the year and the beginning of the year when there are intensive sacrificial rituals, it is basically the busiest time of the year for the meal class. The busiest among them is not the second department responsible for cooking Western food, but the third department responsible for making Japanese confectionery. This is because during sacrificial activities, what is eaten as ceremonial food or offered as an offering to the gods is traditional Japanese cuisine with traditional Japanese confectionery as its core. Starting from the end of every year, basically all the staff in the dining class will be mobilized to start work on the third section, which is responsible for making Japanese confectionery. In modern times, while continuing to pursue Westernization, tradition is still an integral part of the Japanese royal family. Among them, palace rituals centered on religious sacrificial activities are the top priority of the Japanese royal family tradition. In this sense, The role of Japanese cuisine in the palace cannot be ignored.
