boxes for dishes

[chiaki]

From what I have gathered from here and there is that food dishes were not often washed. Since people used their own personal dishes it wasn't too big of a deal at the time. The dishes were often kept in boxes.

Does anyone know:
1) if the dish box was a specific kind of box or just any ol' regular box that was big/small enough for 1 set of dishes?
2) about what era these came about?

Thanks.

[solveig]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Solveig!

Apr 19, 2012 12:51:22 GMT -5 chiaki said:

From what I have gathered from here and there is that food dishes were not often washed. Since people used their own personal dishes it wasn't too big of a deal at the time. The dishes were often kept in boxes.

Does anyone know:
1) if the dish box was a specific kind of box or just any ol' regular box that was big/small enough for 1 set of dishes?
2) about what era these came about?

Thanks.

Where did you get these ideas? While it is true that monks might have their own set of bowls which were kept wrapped in cloth and stored on a shelf, I don't know so much about boxes for dishes. For formal dining, a complete set of dishes with the food on them would be brought out on a tray for each diner. Incidentally, dishes might be washed with rice chaff and water. That is a traditional practice that I encountered on a farm.

On another note. There are boxes which individual dishes might come in. Here is a link for a place that sells boxes for "sara":www.hakoyoshi.com/seihin/sarabako-r.html These boxes are intended to hold an individual plate. Tea bowls are stored in wooden boxes with one bowl per box. The bowl is first wrapped in cloth and then the cloth wrapped tea bowl is stored in a wooden box. The boxes are similar to these boxes for plates, but with different dimensions. Instructions for how to tie these boxes shut can be found at: www.hakoyoshi.com/mame/mame01.html.

Something which might satisfy your needs is a multi-tier box similar to: www.hakoyoshi.com/seihin/otoshi.html

[Deleted]

I have seen a type of box that usually contains a set of dishes, a set of stacking boxes, and (usually) a flask and cups. These are intended for picnics, though. Fill the stacking boxes with food, serve onto plates, hand around festive beverages... The only examples I can recall are post-period, so I don't know how far back they go.

[Saionji Shonagon]

This jubako dates from the early 17th c.
www.asianart.org/samuraigallery/p7hg_img_1/fullsize/samurai-cat101_fs.jpg and I think I have some period ones in some books at home.

[solveig]

Noble Cousins!

Greetings from Solveig! I forgot to mention the bentobako which dates at least to the late sixteenth century. Food to be eaten is stored in the bentobako and is sometimes on plates inside the bentobako. A bentobako typically holds a meal for one person. Note that this is a lunchbox and not a dish storage box. Here is an example which possibly dates to the late sixteenth century in the lower left.



Here is a rather interesting bentobako (on the left) of unknown age.



I believe that stacked boxes have already been mentioned. These could either have a single serving of the delicacy in each box or each box could be filled with delicacies of a single type. The use is a bit different in each case, but neither is typically for a banquet as such. The single delicacy for each box appears in some versions of the tea ceremony. The delicacies filling a box is as noted already sort of a picnic motif. They might also appear when people are in their carriages to view a ceremony.

[chiaki]

Ah interesting. I read in Everyday Things in Premodern Japan that a typical family would have their own set of hashi, rice bowl and tea cup. I don't recall exactly where this box idea came from so it may be a mish-mash of other things.
Thank you very much for the information and the lovely photos!

[Saionji Shonagon]

www.tnm.jp/uploads/r_collection/LL_437.jpg is a detail from the Gaki Zoshi scroll (12th c.) in the Tokyo National Museum. You can see what an aristocratic banquet "place setting" looks like. Each guest has a tray with several bowls arranged upon it. Rice and some sort of soup were always part of the meal, while vegetables, fish or fowl might comprise the other dishes.

www.tnm.jp/uploads/r_collection/LL_C0022477.jpg is a detail from Genre Scenes of the Twelve Months (16th c.), also in the Tokyo National Museum Collection. At the right, servants prepare food and drink (mostly drink, you can see one man decanting sake from a barrel into a pot for serving) for a flower viewing picnic. At the far right edge, there is a box with a handle on top that appears to be some sort of jubako like the picnic service boxes previously posted.

[erink]

I know that modern practice at my local Zen temple is to keep a set of dishes for each resident during multi-day events that include ritualized meals. The dishes are a set of bowls wrapped in a napkin. At the end of the meal they are scraped and rinsed with hot water, which the user is supposed to drink, then they get wrapped back up in the napkin with the scraper and utensil/s for the next meal. Supposedly, the hot water is sufficient cleaning because the food has little oil or sugar.

(But last time I was there the temple also had a dishwasher for non-ritual use!)

This temple is in Pennsylvania but its lineage is Japanese. So the rudimentary washing thing is plausibly part of that tradition.