[Sca-cooks] Re: History of Japanese Food

[Barbara Nostrand]

Noble Cousins!

Greetings from Solveig! I am now about half done reading the book and
have plowed through all of the pre-modern chapters. I am now in my
annoyed stage with respect to this particular book. The author has a
bad habit of only giving citations for modern history papers and not
giving much in the way of citations for original texts which he at
times mentions by name, but never with a complete citation. That will
probably not be much of a handicap for most of the people on this
mailing list, but it is infuriating for me. It does me no good to
learn that there are ten extant treatises on cooking dating from
before the mid-17th century culminating in Ryorimonogatari. I already
have several versions of Ryorimonogatari. While the author does mention
the oldest, he gives not citation for the thing which means I have to
go find it for myself. He doesn't even mention the other eight although
I think I may have two or three of them already. BAH!

What is surprising is the author's apparent ignorance of the food
related sections of Ishinpo which is the oldest Chinese medical
manual and which was actually composed in Chinese by a Japanese
physician. He does argue from a limited number of imperial dairies
commissioned by the emperor that there no more than a specified
very small number of milk cows in Japan at the time. This is an
unjustified assumption as that he needs to also demonstrate that
other groups were not keeping cows at this time. This is a general
style problem. While there is much wonderful material in this book,
at times he simply makes unsubstantiated and also unqualified
pronouncements. The relevance of the Ishinpo and other period
manuscripts is that they prescribe what appears to be a pasturization
process for milk and water. Thus far, I have not encountered any
discussion of this process.

The book occasionally suffers from Nihonron (Japan theory) but not
nearly as much as it might have. There is plenty of interesting
stuff in the book. I don't regret buying it, not that I had much of
a choice.

					Your Humble Servant
					Solveig Throndardottir
					Amateur Scholar

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| Barbara Nostrand, Ph.D.         | Solveig Throndardottir, CoM       |
| deMoivre Institute              | Carolingia Statis Mentis Est      |
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