[Sca-cooks] medieval Japanese [food] for the total novice..

[Elaine Koogler]

Sorry for the delay in responding, but I was attending a class last week,
and didn't really have much access to my e-mail.

There is a new book out that I can't afford at the moment that has all of
what you're asking about...Devra has it...it's a history of Japanese foods.
One person you might want to contact for information is Dame Hauviette
d'Anjou (ChannonM at aol.com ).  She did a feast sometime back as a luncheon at
Pennsic for a knighting.  She has some wonderful information about
tea-ceremony foods.

I think you are pretty much good to go with things like various veggies
 cucumber, onion, spinach, snow peas, bean sprouts, mushrooms, carrots,
etc., but not demonstrably new world things like bell pepper, etc.).  They
also had things like various type of noodles, rice, millet, tofu, soy sauce,
rice vinegar.  So far as meat/fish/poultry is concerned, you're always
pretty safe with fish.  I usually tend to shy away from beef and pork, and
I'm not sure about chicken.  Sushi is defnitely not period, at least the way
we know about it, but, oddly enough, tempura is.  I have recently discovered
that yakitori is probably a period dish as well.

We are presently in the process of translating an almost-period Japanese
cook book, the "Ryori Monogotari"...I believe that our translator has almost
completed one chapter.  We will be sharing these as they are completed.

I hope this helps.  Let me know if you need more information.

Kiri
----- Original Message -----

> I volunteered to help a friend with food for a Japanese event. She's done
> some of the research, Juliana is going to be helping with this and knows
> about Japanese food, but I'm just feast brain and chopping appliance, 'cos
> I don't know the first thing about Japanese food (ok, other than a little
> bit about modern sushi-- enough to pick out the bits I will eat-- tempura,
> and seaweed soup with noodles. In other words, I'm an occasional
> consumer).
>
> I know it's a tall order but would the people on the list who do Japanese
> medieval stuff be willing to give me a sort of survival precis on what
> sort of foods we're looking at so I don't feel like a complete idiot? I'm
> talking about a basic lists of 'they ate [these proteins, these starches,
> these veggies]" kind of thing would be helpful.
>
> -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa