Lighting

[Sō Haruko]

What did the medieval Japanese use in their lamps? I'm taking a blind stab and guessing whale oil or something similar. Candles seem wrong. Were soybeans used for oil this early in Japan? I know they were in China ...

[Saionji Shonagon]

Check out this thread, there's some info there: tousando.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=research&action=display&thread=1919

Rapeseed and fish oils were common in oil burning lamps, candles were used, though somewhat expensive.

[Sō Haruko]

Thanks, I'll check it out! (:

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2012 13:56:05 GMT -5 Saionji Shonagon said:

Rapeseed and fish oils were common in oil burning lamps, candles were used, though somewhat expensive.

If you have trouble finding rapeseed oil in the store, cast your eyes over to canola oil instead. There actually isn't any such thing as a "canola". All of the marketing execs just didn't think nutty consumers would really cotton to a product with "rape" in the name. Corny, but true.

[Sō Haruko]

Oh yeah, very true. I helped my college put on a medieval dinner at one point, and the "rapeyes" got renamed to "fritters".

Hadn't realized that rapeseed had been used for oil for that length of time. Interesting.

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2012 22:27:53 GMT -5 Sō Haruko said:

Hadn't realized that rapeseed had been used for oil for that length of time. Interesting.

Well, natural rapeseed oil has high levels of an acid that make it unpalatable and possibly toxic. The "canola" (CANadian Oil, Low Acid) variant has been bred to produce about 1% of the amount of acid, but has only been available since the late 1990's. Before that, the oil wasn't considered useful for food so it makes sense they found other uses for it.

Wikipedia says, "Hundreds of years ago, rapeseed oil was used as a fuel in lamps in Asia and Europe. The Chinese and Indians used a form of rapeseed oil that was unrefined (natural)." and cites Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill by Udo Erasmus.