[Sca-cooks] 1590 Sen no Rikyu Meal in Kyoto

[Gaylin Walli]

                       Subject:  1590 Sen no Rikyu Meal in Kyoto

                       Cort, Louise Allison. (1990). Japanese ceramics
and cuisine.
                        _Asian Art_, 3 (1), 9-35.



                       In discussing the paring down of the honzen
meal to the kaiseki
                       form, one which embodied simplicity at its core, Ms. Cort
                       writes:

                       "In extreme cases, only one side dish was
offered [with the
                       single soup of bean paste diluted in broth,
called misoshiru],
                       and meals with two side dishes were not
infrequent. The merchant
                       Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591), who served as professional tea
                       advisor to the warrior leaders Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi
                       Hideyoshi, is credited with bringing many aspects of wabi
                       [the form of tea centered around the merchant
class] tea to
                       their ultimate refinement, and his menus are no
exception.
                       For example, when Rikyu's son Shoan and a Nara
merchant visited
                       the elderly Rikyu in Kyoto in early autumn
1590, only a few
                       months before his death, Rikyu received them in
his two-mat
                       (six-foot-square) tea room. In the meal that he
served, the
                       two side dishes were morsels of abalone grilled
on skewers and
                       crucian carp sashimi. As "sweets" preceding the
bitter tea,
                       Rikyu served shiitake mushrooms (probably
simmered in a broth)
                       and funoyaki, a crepe rolled around bean paste"
(pgs. 15-16).

                       There's a considerable amount of more
information here behind
                       the logic of Rikyu's choices that makes for
interesting reading,
                       especially with regards to the paring down of
the Honzen-based
                       meal in response to the dominance of the Zen
Buddhist activities
                       of the time.