When it comes to Japan, many Chinese are very eager for Japanese cuisine, but in the two thousand years of cultural exchanges between China and Japan, Japan's food and food culture are deeply influenced by China. Japanese people can more or less see the eating habits of the ancient Chinese in the selection of food materials, cooking methods and seasoning methods. But today we see that the difference between Chinese food and Japanese cuisine is still very large, what is the reason for the different development direction of food culture in two countries?
Rice, the beginning of the introduction of Chinese food culture
We have basically heard the legend that Qin Shi Huang went around seeking alchemists in search of elixirs, and Xu Fu wandered around him for several years. Seeing that Qin Shi Huang was getting older and his health was deteriorating, Xu Fu would be unable to escape if he did not want to escape, so he asked Qin Shi Huang to give him three thousand boys and girls and go to the overseas Penglai Immortal Island to seek immortal medicine for him. Qin Shi Huang gladly agreed, and also agreed to Xu Fu's many requests, and it was not expected that Xu Fu would take these virgin boys and girls to settle in Japan and not return. At that time, Japan was in the Yayoi Era of new and old innovations, and according to legend, the grain seeds and farming methods brought by Xu Fu made Yayoi Japan develop by leaps and bounds.
Rice culture is the beginning and symbol of Chinese food culture, and for most of the southern regions of China, rice is used as the staple food. As for the cultivation of wheat, historians and folklorists Ma Xingguo and Miyata Noboru believe that the seeds of wheat were introduced by Chinese, roughly dating from the Qin and Han dynasties in China, because the perennial war and chaos made the people unbearable, so they fled to Japan and promoted the development of Japanese farming culture. They also believe that Japanese soba noodles were introduced to the Korean Peninsula from China and then from the Korean Peninsula to Japan. It can be seen that rice and noodles, which are staple foods of the Japanese, were imported from China. Chinese farming culture is also one of the hallmarks of the East Asian Chinese cultural circle, which has deeply influenced the eating habits of neighboring countries.
Chopsticks, the beginning of the era of comprehensive learning in Japan
The first peak of Sino-Japanese exchanges was during China's Sui and Tang dynasties, during which every aspect of Japanese life was influenced by China, and imitating the eating habits of Chinese had become a popular trend.
In the "Sui Shu Wu Guo Biography", it is recorded that the Japanese were still grabbing it with their hands when they were eating. Although archaeologists today can find some chopstick-like "folding spoons" among the yayoi period remains, this artifact was used for sacrifice at that time, not for eating. There are still two theories about how chopsticks were introduced to Japan, some Japanese scholars believe that chopsticks were moved to Japan through Korea along with the introduction of Buddhism, while other scholars believe that the introduction of chopsticks was due to the fact that Prince Shengde actively sought friendly relations with the Sui Dynasty at that time, and sent emissaries to China and brought them back to China.
The Japanese historian Shimi Watanabe believes that the Sui envoys at that time tried their best to learn the food culture in the court in China, and remembered it, and after returning to China, they formulated the banquet culture of the Japanese court according to gourd paintings. After the royal banquet invited civil and military officials, these food cultures quickly spread into the folk, and eating with chopsticks became a high-end trend of eating.
During this period, the introduction and use of chopsticks was only a small part, and after the Japanese Envoys sui and Tang envoys stayed in China for a long time, they also brought Chinese festivals and festival traditions into Japan. For example, the Tanabata Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Chongyang Festival, and the rice dumplings or chrysanthemum wine eaten during the festivals are also gradually appearing in the daily life of Japanese people.
In addition, it must be mentioned that the master of authenticity, who had a profound impact on The history and culture of Japan, after returning from studying in China, built a new temple in Japan to promote Buddhism. At the same time, he also brought the vegetarian culture he learned in China to Japan. The most typical of these is ''tofu''.
Because of the prosperity of Buddhism at that time, the Japanese imperial family repeatedly advocated vegetarian food, and even ordered many times in the Nara period to prohibit people from eating meat, so far, we have found that the Japanese diet is light and exquisite, and it is also deeply affected by the change of food culture during this period.
Tea, Japan's inheritance and reflection on Chinese food culture
During the Tang Dynasty, China's tea ceremony culture began to slowly spread to Japan, and it began to be popular in Japanese high society. This brings us to another famous Japanese monk, Zen Master Eisei. Rongxi's active period coincided with the Song Dynasty in China, and although Japan did not officially send envoys to China to study at that time, with the development of commerce, people-to-people exchanges between China and Japan became more and more frequent.
Rongxi brought the Chinese tea drinking etiquette to Japan, and also brought back a skill that will be carried forward in Japan in the future, which is matcha tea. Yes, matcha first appeared in China's Song Dynasty, and the matcha tea method advocated by the literati at that time deeply influenced the monks and merchants who came to China to communicate at that time.
Matcha does not refer to a taste, but to the process of grinding tea leaves into a powder. At that time, people would first grind tea cakes into powder, use a sieve to finely make tea, and finally create a white foam with a high impact of boiling water. Because during the Song Dynasty, tea processing was still in its infancy, so there were also later black tea, white tea, black tea, oolong tea and the like, only green tea, so matcha tea is generally only ground with green tea.
With the exchanges between Chinese and Japanese monks, matcha was loved by Japanese high society after it was introduced to Japan, and it developed into a Japanese tea ceremony based on matcha, and it was carried forward, and it can even be said that the ultimate of matcha was carried forward. In China, because Zhu Yuanzhang later believed that the cost of tea cakes and tea balls was too high, he advocated the use of folk waste group tea and xingshan tea, which has always affected our current tea drinking habits. Later, China's tea became more and more abundant, in addition to green tea, there were five other well-known types of tea, especially the rise of oolong tea, which suddenly covered the momentum of other teas. Therefore, matcha has gradually lost its foundation for development in China, but has faded out of people's lives.
In Japan, the matcha tea ceremony has always been a high-society "grand finale program", and although the original method has always been adhered to in the production process, too much red tape has been added to the form. For ordinary Japanese people, it is also rare to experience a traditional matcha tea ceremony.
Noodles and miso soup affected the outcome of the war
Noodles and miso are both Chinese imported into Japan, noodles are more familiar to many people, but when it comes to miso, many people will wonder, after all, for modern people, miso is a unique word in Japanese food.
Miso first appeared in the Song Dynasty, but Chinese generally not called miso, but 'noodle sauce''. Miso is fermented together from soybeans, rice and wheat to not only have a strong aroma, but also provide the body with salts, alcohols and amino acids from various provinces. Miso also has an appetizing function, which can reduce the discomfort of the human body and enhance the body's resistance.
As mentioned above, because of the introduction of Buddhism, the Japanese Emperor decreed that nobles were not allowed to eat red meat, and Japanese samurai had to eat fish and shrimp to supplement protein in the body. This habit gradually affected the common people and continued for hundreds of years, until the Meiji Restoration, under the influence of Western ideas, it was slowly lifted.
At the end of the Heian period in Japan, between 1180 and 1185, there was a fierce war between the two major samurai clans of the Genji and Heiji clans. At that time, both Genji and Heishi soldiers ate onigami sushi, and soldiers on the battlefield did not have red meat to supplement protein, and it was easy to fatigue. At this time, Genji's soldiers had a slightly better diet than Hei's soldiers, and they had noodles and miso.
Pasta is originally more anti-hunger, miso can be appetizing and can also provide salt for the body, soldiers eat better, the resistance to disease is strong, and there is better endurance when fighting. It was because of this difference in detail that Genji's soldiers defeated the Hei clan with a single blow, and the emperor was forced to enfeoff Gendai as a shogun of the Seiyi Dynasty. The Genrai dynasty created the kamakura shogunate, the first shogunate in Japanese history, and began a 700-year-long autocratic rule, and the emperor's power was emptied until the tomb robbery movement during the Meiji emperor period was completely over.
The soldiers and horses did not move, and the grain and grass went first. For war, the importance of diet has been repeatedly emphasized by military experts. A large part of the reason why Japanese people have a special love for noodles and miso soup comes from this history.
summary:
The famous Japanese writer Ryunosuke Wasagawa (author of Rashomon) is a foodie who loves Chinese food. He made a special trip to China in 1921, traveled to Shanghai, Nanjing, Changsha, Beijing and other food gathering places, and finally came to the conclusion that even a small restaurant in Shanghai tasted much better than a Chinese restaurant in Tokyo, and it was cheap and beautiful.
When Ryunosuke Wasagawa traveled to China, he had full of romantic expectations for China, but he was fiercely disappointed. As a sensitive journalist, when he saw a man with pigtails in Shanghai defecating openly against a lotus pond, he wrote fiercely:
Chen Shufan rebelled, vernacular poetry is going downhill, and this kind of thing is not under the words of this braided man at all.
Ryunosuke Wasagawa's "pride and prejudice" of China at that time was reflected in the words of "Travels in China", in his view, the West Lake is a paddy field, the rebuilt Hanshan Temple is unbearable, the Qinhuai River is a stinky ditch, and the country that once gave birth to Wang Yangming, Li Bai and Du Fu made him fascinated, and now only desperate people are left.
And only for food, he is deeply impressed, which comes from his deep sense of belonging to Chinese food.
The cultural exchanges between China and Japan for two thousand years, from dependence and dependence, to later aggression and aggression, to to today's peaceful coexistence... There is only food, silently telling the adventures and efforts made by the emissaries of the two countries for a better life for the people.
Resources:
Ryunosuke Wasagawa - Travels in China, Zhonghua Bookstore
Ma Xingguo, Noboru Miyata - "The History of Sino-Japanese Cultural Exchanges", Zhejiang People's Publishing House
Li Yinsheng - "On Sino-Japanese Cultural Exchanges and Mutual Influence in the Song and Yuan Dynasties"