Japanese Feast?

[Yamamori]

I'm trying to help out the Auto/Feastocrat for the spring Baronial Coronet here - it'll be up north in Misawa.

Due to persona and location, I of course have suggested doing a Japanese feast. It would be good for the visitors (and those who never really get off the bases here) to have a little local flavor (so to speak).

I'm sure everyone here would approve.

However, as we know sushi and tempura are post-period. Tonkatsu and gyutan (Sendai's specialty!) are just out of the question.

So, what do we serve? I've been to some excellent banquets at ryokan and events, but don't know how to recreate the feeling of the thing and stay within period.

Can anyone give advice beyond "grilled fish & rice"?

[Saionji Shonagon]

Try here, I believe there is a menu for a Japanese feast that was done for an event in the East Kingdom a year or so ago:

www.geocities.com/anne_liese_w/Japanese/japindex.htm

Makiwara

[Otagiri Tatsuzou]

Some basics gleaned from Japanese Cooking by Emi Kazuko:
tousando.proboards18.com/index.cgi?board=media&action=display&thread=1111342644&start=0

[raito]

I did one at Warrior's Day, a whole bunch of years ago.

If I remember correctly (and I probably don't) we had:
lots of rice
various pickles (ginger, cucumber ones with miso and rice bran -- didn't turn out too well, and some others not springing to mind except for the long onion red pepper and honey ones)
maki with egg and long onion (yeah, I know...) (Ihashi got on me for not having wasabi)
tofu with red and white miso (poppy seeds on the red, and sesame on the white)
soup with wakame, tofu, and quail egg
some goofy beef dish with red miso, ginger and such (cobbled together from a bunch of sources)
fish sausage (interesting stuff)
asian pear and agar jelly with red bean paste
(that's about all I remember, there was more than 20 separate dishes total)

We provided all the gear for the head table (8 persons), and each got their own individual server (in a manner of speaking. Each was served by an individual, and then a crew of 2 took over from there. The rest helped serve the other tables).

We had 12 cooks for 108 people. It was a great success, and one of my best memories from my entire SCA career.

The only other sort of thing like this I did was done in Ansteorra, where there was a Japanese-themed event, but the menu looked a bit, er, 'continental' to Raito. So I made 10 or so dishes for myself and a couple friends. Don't remember as much about that one, except that the skewered and grilled trout turned out very nicely.

[Masahide]

This is an event that occured in the East a couple of years ago:

www.settmourswamp.eastkingdom.org/japanindex.html

Masahide

[Saionji Shonagon]

Masahide said:

This is an event that occured in the East a couple of years ago:

My first event in Japanese! We're STILL referring to it as the Teahouse of the Damned. It was a good idea gone horribly, horribly wrong. NEVER oversell a small hall and expect to have floor seating. I was litterally pinned back to back with Fujiwara-hime and neither of us could move. The "feast" was buffet style - like one can juggle multiple bowls and serve oneself without having to make numerous trips up and back - and the lines around the edge of the hall made the congestion even worse.

Not well thought out at all, more's the pity.

M.

[Masahide]

makiwara said:

My first event in Japanese! We're STILL referring to it as the Teahouse of the Damned. It was a good idea gone horribly, horribly wrong. NEVER oversell a small hall and expect to have floor seating. I was litterally pinned back to back with Fujiwara-hime and neither of us could move. The "feast" was buffet style - like one can juggle multiple bowls and serve oneself without having to make numerous trips up and back - and the lines around the edge of the hall made the congestion even worse.

Not well thought out at all, more's the pity.

M.

Well.... the feast menu looks good. How was the food? We are planning a Japanese style event here, and we were using that as a reference for the menu.

Masahide

[Saionji Shonagon]

Masahide said:

Well.... the feast menu looks good. How was the food?

I don't know - I couldn't GET to it. Somebody ferried back a bowl of miso that nearly gave me a stroke from the sodium content. Our entire table left in disgust and went to Izumi for a hibachi dinner instead.

I did not attend, but I heard very good things about "Sword and the Crysanthemum" - go back up through this thread, I posted a link to the menu.

Makiwara.

[Yamamori]

Many thanks to everyone who has so generously aided us.

It would be wonderful if the anticipation of this exellent feast were to move the autocrat to give the whole event a Japanese theme.

Does anyone know if unagi/ unadon is period? I love it, and wouldn't mind a bit if it were the main dish of the feast. Having it catered would also ease the burden on the autocrat, who has had to assume responsibility for the feast as well as the event.

Pressed sushi is period? That would be good.

Pickles of various types can be had at the supermarket...

Is it period to serve white rice?

Another nice thing about living in Japan - the 100-Yen stores all have plastic (not lacquer, but passes the 10-foot rule!) and ceramic feast-gear, so eveyone should be able to get passable stuff.

Again, many thanks.

Yamamori.

[Otagiri Tatsuzou]

Yamamori said:

Pressed sushi is period? That would be good.

Maybe ... but the historical form sounds (and smells) more like kimchi than modern sushi.

"One of the forms it eventually took was nare-sushi, a sushi made with carp in the vicinity of Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture. As had been the custom from the beginning, only the fish was eaten; the rice was discarded. The history of Biwa carp sushi, also called funa-sushi, is said to extend back 1300 years, and it is still eaten today.

Preparing nare-sushi takes from 2 months to more than a year. People in 15 Th and 16 Th century Japan came to think not only that this was too time-consuming but that it was a waste of rice. They were loathe to waste such a valuable grain, and this led in time to the development of nama-nare or han-nare, which matures in a few days. Eating both fish and rice dates from this period."
www.sushiman.net/sushi/history.htm

"In 718, the first written record of "sushi" in Japan appeared in the set of laws called Yororituryo (養老律令). As an example of tax paid by actual items, it is written down as "雑鮨五斗 (about 64 liters of zakonosushi or zatsunosushi?)". However, there is no way to know what this "sushi" was or even how it was pronounced. By 9th and 10th century "鮨" and "鮓" are read as "Sushi" or "Sashi". These "Sushi" or "Sashi" were similar to today's Narezushi.

For next nearly 800 years, until early 19th century, sushi slowly changed and the Japanese cuisine changed as well. Japanese started eating three meals a day, rice was boiled instead of steamed, and most important of all, rice vinegar was invented. The time of fermentation gradually decreased and rice could be eaten as well. Soon, Oshizushi was made by using vinegar and skipping the fermentation process. This new process gradually took shape in Muromachi period. In Azuchi-Momoyama Period, Namanari was invented. In 1603, a Japanese Portuguese dictionary was published and this had an entry of Namanrina Sushi, lit. half made sushi. This namanari was believed to be fermented for a period less than that of narezushi and possibly marinated with rice vinegar. It still had the distinctive smell of narezushi.

The smell of narezushi was likely one of the reasons for shortening and eventually skipping the fermentation process. It is commonly described as "a cross between blue cheese, fish, and rice vinegar". A story from Konjakumonogatarisyu written in early 12th century makes it clear that it was not an attractive smell, even if it tasted good. A man visited a friend in Kyoto and got on a horse to go home. A drunken woman sleeping nearby woke up startled and got dizzy and she vomitted on a bowl of narezushi she had been selling on foot. Instead of throwing away or trying to scoop out, she quickly mixed it into narezushi. The man stingingly pointed out that narezushi was like a pile of spit to begin with and those who bought them most have eaten them anyway. He would from this point on, tell any one who would listen to him to not to buy a narezushi from anyone or any store. "
encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Sushi

[Abe Akirakeiko]

makiwara said:

Try here, I believe there is a menu for a Japanese feast that was done for an event in the East Kingdom a year or so ago:

www.geocities.com/anne_liese_w/Japanese/japindex.htm

Makiwara

Sword and Chrysanthemum was absolutely amazing...the food was fantastic and the atmosphere was wonderful. I do hope that Mokurai-bozu and Fujiwara no Aki-ame-hime do it again at some point.

Inspired by them, Ii-dono and I are going to be hosting a hanami party here on April 16th, with menus inspired by what we know of late-period Heian cuisine:

Banquet:

- Rice w/salted cherry blossoms
- Seasonings: salt, sake, vinegar, hishio
- Awabi (abalone) sliced with soy, sake and sesame oil
- Simmered bamboo shoots
- Sakura-iri no shiru ("cherry blossom" octopus in broth) or shika-jiru (venison broth)
- Konomono ("fragrant things" - pickles)
- Maguro sashimi, or sake miso-yaki (salmon grilled in sweet white miso)
- Fresh fruit
- Tougashi ("Chinese cakes" - sweet mochi deep-fried in sesame oil)

Sake party:

- Tsutsumiyaki (stuffed "fish")
- Noodles in broth
- Sakana (accompaniments for sake)
- Shiitake amakara-ni (sweet and salty simmered mushrooms)
- Renkon (lotus root) in honey and vinegar
- Kurage aemono (jellyfish with plum paste)
- Assorted mochi
- Assorted steamed buns and moon cakes
- Sake, of course!

We'll see how it turns out.

[Please Delete]

Some notes below...

- Rice w/salted cherry blossoms
- Seasonings: salt, sake, vinegar, hishio

'Hishio' is the predecessor to soy sauce (shoyu). Our understanding is that it is more 'chunky'. Along with miso, it is one of the 'fermented soy' variants.

- Awabi (abalone) sliced with soy, sake and sesame oil

Back in Heian times, at least, abalone appears to have been an auspicious food.

- Simmered bamboo shoots
- Sakura-iri no shiru ("cherry blossom" octopus in broth) or shika-jiru (venison broth)

Depending on availability. Both are in Ryori Monogatari, which is a 17th Century manuscript, but we feel fairly safe that they would be at home in the Heian period.

- Konomono ("fragrant things" - pickles)

So named because they would be used with the incense ceremony (kodo) to 'clear the palate', as it were.

Today, if you are trying out perfumes, department stores will often have coffee beans for sniffing to perform a similar function.

- Maguro sashimi, or sake miso-yaki (salmon grilled in sweet white miso)

Although sushi, as we know it, is not very period, sashimi appears to be, according to almost all of our sources on the matter, including Ishige Naomichi's The History and Culture of Japanese Food.

- Fresh fruit

Very common--tangerines, peaches, plums, etc. Easy, and they pile up nicely into the very Heian pyramids so often seen in illustrations.

- Tougashi ("Chinese cakes" - sweet mochi deep-fried in sesame oil)

Another one from Ishige's book.

Sake party:

While the banquet appears to be rather formal, the sake party appears to be more of the 'party' atmosphere, where the poetry would be composed, the songs sung, etc. The sake party evolved into a tea party which seems to then have become the tea ceremony (when greatly overhauled by Sen no Rikkyu et al). Reportedly some of this may remain in 'kuge no cha', but I've never actually learned Sado, let alone the noble version.

- Tsutsumiyaki (stuffed "fish")

This appears to be a staple of the sake party. Our version is 'special'....

- Noodles in broth

These would probably be 'muginawa'. It is unclear what these noodles were like, exactly, but it appears to be similar to modern 'soumen', according to Ishige, and they were used from the 8th century until the middle ages.

- Sakana (accompaniments for sake)

The following are the sakana:

- Shiitake amakara-ni (sweet and salty simmered mushrooms)
- Renkon (lotus root) in honey and vinegar
- Kurage aemono (jellyfish with plum paste)

- Assorted mochi
- Assorted steamed buns and moon cakes
- Sake, of course!

[AJBryant]

The smell of narezushi was likely one of the reasons for shortening and eventually skipping the fermentation process. It is commonly described as "a cross between blue cheese, fish, and rice vinegar".

Japanese lutefisk!! ;D


Tony