[Sca-cooks] japanese menus

[Gaylin Walli]

It just occurs to me that as I sit here posting some Japanese menus on the
SCA-JML (Japanese Mailing List), there are people elsewhere who might
think it amiss if I didn't at least offer to share here as well.... At the risk
of double and triple posting people, I'll start sending these files
to SCA-Cooks,
MK-Cooks, and the JML. I've included my original note below. -- Iasmin



From:  "Gaylin Walli" <iasmin at h...>
Date:  Tue May 15, 2001  7:42 pm
Subject:  Japanese menus from period are on their way

As I mentioned in previous email, one of the things I've
been looking for has been documentable Japanese menus from
our researched time period. My persona in the SCA is not
Japanese, but I am married to a man with a Japanese persona
and my dream is to be able to cook such meals for him as may
have been done in period. As the baron and baroness of our
local area, we also run into a little trouble with our
populace because, while we can direct them to period Spanish
cookbooks (my persona is from Cordban Spain, 1550s), we have
a very hard time finding good references in English to meals
they can cook for us from period Japan.

I have since begun to solve that problem by a recent find at
the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), in the form of two articles
that have proven invaluable as a starting point for research.
The Journals are ones carried regularly by the DIA and as a
non-profit research organization member, we have the wonderful
priveledge of accessing the information at this library.

_Asian Art_ magazine was the first journal we had the chance to
look at during our research. The head librarian pulled this
journal because in it is an article by Louise Allison Cort on
Japanese ceramics. However, the article is called "Japanese
Ceramics and Cuisine" because it contains a very good series of
descriptions about some of the food with which the ceramics
were used. Specially, Ms. Cort goes to the trouble of detailing
a cache of ceramics discovered in March 1988 in Kyoto, believed
to be on the site of a late sixteenth-century merchant and
collector of pottery. The term she uses to  "karamonoya" to
describe this merchant, stating that he was a "dealer in native
and foreign ceramics, both new and antique" (pg. 9).

The article focuses on the pottery and cuisine, and the evolution
thereof, involved with "chanoyu," which I understand in my
limited knowledge of Japanese culture to have been the tea ceremony
featured at the gatherings of merchants, officials, and religous
people, as well as nobles. Ms. Cort also discusses at some small
length the "kaiseki ryori" and "honzen ryori" evolutions. These
were at the time described as the food prepared for the tea
ceremony.

The second article I have is from _Chanoyu Quarterly_, a journal
on tea and the arts of Japan. Originally written for a Japanese
exhibition catalog from Japan, this article is a translation and
an adaption from the original. Its title is "The History of the
Kaiseki Meal" and is authored by Tsutsui Jiroichi, though the
first page states that the article is a translation. No name is
given for the translator. Tsutsui Hiroichi is also one of the
editorial advisors for this publication.

In both articles foodstuffs and full menus are listed for period
and near-period meals which may be of interest to the SCAdians and
research nuts on this list. I claim no expertise in these items of
interest, merely a sincere desire to provide people with menus for
which they and I have been searching for in ernest for some time.

I hope that the next few posts I place will be of use to you all and
will help with the discussions on this list, perhaps inspiring a
few of you to cook some of the menus. I'll post each menu as a
separate post and include the published names information I have
attached to the information. I'm doing it this way so I can spread
it all out across the course of the evening as I do my work. My
apologies in advance for the delays between posts.

Iasmin

Iasmin de Cordoba