[Sca-cooks] Japanese Cookery

[Solveig Throndardottir]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Sólveig! 
> The hope is to create a Japanese feast after having been taught or working
> with locals.  But, also a dish or two that are western but using local
> ingredients.
That is easily done if you are willing to limit yourself to stuff which made it into the Japanese food canon from the 16th century. For example: the Portuguese sweet "fios de ovos”, castella cakes, and tempura all made it into the Japanese canon. Early tempura appears to have been made from minced fish instead of the whole fish seen today. There is some question as to the type of oil to use. Currently, Japan uses soybean oil. However, in period you would more likely be seeing either sesame oil or rapeseed oil. Rapeseed showed up rather late. I forget whether it made it into Japan by the time when you wish to locate your feast. (I can easily look up the period of arrival for various ingredients in『食文化論』Shokubunkaron.  If you are dealing with meat, I am not sure why you would not simply broil it or stew it. Yakimono (typically broiled on skewers) is quite ancient in Japan. Your cook would generally speaking not have access to ovens in Japan. There are quite a few pictures of Japanese kitchens available online including the marvelous copy of the picture scroll “Shuhanron” at the French National Museum.

Your Humble Servant
Sólveig Þróndardóttir
Amateur Scholar