At this time, Yang Fan and his wife were tasting authentic sashimi and sushi in the castle tower. ww
In fact, Japan in the Warring States Period and afterward had very little food to eat, and there were no Japanese delicacies that would be dazzling in later generations. What is on the table is prepared by the chef brought by Yang Fan according to the standards of later generations of Japanese food and from fresh fish caught locally.
There are only two dishes on the table, which are authentic delicacies of this era. One is yokan and the other is shaved ice.
Yokan is not mutton soup. There are no sheep in Japan, let alone mutton. Even wagyu beef was introduced in modern times. Yokan is mainly made from bean flour and chestnut flour, and is eaten with tea. It is a kind of liquid solidified refreshment. This is very different from drinking tea with snacks in China.
They like to drink tea and jelly together.
However, the yokan still tastes delicious and won unanimous praise from the ladies.
It can be said that the Japanese at that time believed that tea and yokan were the standards for receiving guests. Serving them together only showed that the other party was an honored guest.
Yang Fan introduced: "In Edo, you have to eat yokan slowly. If you eat it in one bite, you will be looked down upon. You will be regarded as a bumpkin."
The little girl just took a big bite and rolled her eyes at him.
However, the sugar water shaved ice was not recognized by everyone, thinking it was much worse than the ice cream in the house. This thing is similar to modern sugar-water shaved ice, but Japan invented it a thousand years ago.
People don’t like it mainly because it’s not sweet enough. It only takes three plus signs. Yang Fan's back house is full of greedy cats who like sweets. Their mouths are so full of ice cream.
There was no such thing as a refrigerator in Japan at that time. Therefore, the ice cubes eaten in summer are collected from frozen rivers in winter, and then stored in underground ice cellars. They will not be taken out to the nobles until the next summer.
Fast transportation is required to ensure that the ice cubes do not melt.
Normally the people's taxes and miscellaneous taxes are very heavy, but if you are willing to store and transport ice, you can directly offset the taxes. Therefore, many people braved the hot summer weather and drove trucks to transport ice to offset the corvee and taxes.
Sugar water in this era was even rarer. At that time, Japan did not have Guangdong sugar like the Ming Dynasty. They don't have granulated sugar or rock sugar yet.
The sugar water at this time is actually the juice boiled from kudzu root. After the juice is collected, the syrup is made.
Pueraria lobata does not contain much sugar. It takes more than ten kilograms of pueraria lobata to make less than half a bowl of sugar water. This sugar water is still dark. Good condition is also amber. This kind of sugar definitely cannot be compared with granulated sugar.
Lin Yueru ate a few spoons and then put it down, frowning and refusing to eat.
"Sir, this shaved ice is not as delicious as the one you made. The syrup has a Chinese medicinal flavor, as well as a bitter taste. It also smells like cigarette smoke. It tastes terrible." Chen Xi and Mei Xiang also complained. .
Well, Yang Fan also put down the spoon, it really didn't taste good.
Xiao Niangpi quickly asked: "Japan is also an ancient country that is thousands of years old. There must be a lot of delicious food. If there is anything else delicious, bring it over. Let us appraise it for them."
Yang Fan snapped his fingers and said: "You can have this, but you must try it. What I have arranged must be something you can eat. If you really try the so-called delicacies of Japan in this era, I'm afraid you won't be able to eat it. "
Xiao Niangpi immediately protested: "No way, I am a gourmet, and I can try most of all kinds of food. I want to eat Japan's top banquet dishes."
Well, the two things Xiao Niangpi loves most in life, besides tasting delicious food, is getting a beauty sleep. Yang Fan often pinched her little face lovingly and said that he treated his wife like a pig. Then he was severely repaired by the angry little girl.
Yang Fan clapped his hands, and a group of maids from the Japanese feudal lord's mansion filed in, carrying food.
Yang Fan introduced: "The high-end banquet is very ceremonial and divided into nine categories."
A team of maids brought the tableware first. Because in Japanese castles people sit on the floor. The ground is covered with solid wood floors, which have been polished to a polished finish over hundreds of years.
These tableware were placed on the floor, and everyone sat cross-legged and ate around them.
In the first step, on the dining table called Gaobao, three kinds of tableware including chopsticks, chopsticks and spoons, as well as wine, vinegar and four seasonings are placed, which is called the first step.
Second entry: Gao Sheng rice. Filling a bowl with brown rice is called Gosheng rice, and it is a ritual to show hospitality at banquets. Since the Kofun period, steamed rice with less water content and a harder texture was used, but in the late Heian period, it was cooked in a method similar to modern rice cooking. In the Edo period, this tradition was still the staple food.
Third entry: main course. Nine main dishes.
The two bowls in the center hold hot and cold soups:
The sauce on the right is a hot soup made from abalone.
The cold sauce on the left is a cold soup made by adding carp meat to the plate, salt and soup, and adding yam and mustard.
The top half of the five-plate dish includes five types of fish dumplings: carp dumplings in the middle, sea bream dumplings and seabass dumplings on the right, and soup on the left. Yuan is made by cutting fish and birds directly into thin strips and mixing them with vinegar. Sauce is the hot soup from which the cooked fish is served.
Three plates in the lower half:
Pu is made by spreading fish paste on bamboo skewers or branches and grilling it.
Ping: Grilled snapper.
Lingyu Ziyaki: Cut the skinned carp into 6 mm thick, then cut it into squares of about 15 mm, tie it with a skewer, dip it in the folding sauce and grill it quickly.
When this main dish is served, you can see that fish is the focus of the dish, especially snapper, which is the most advanced ingredient, followed by carp and sea bass.
Until the Meiji era, fish dishes with white flesh were the best for banquets, and yellow salmon, bonito, and red tuna were called "color items."
These colored fish are not the main dishes favored by nobles at high-end banquets. This is very different from the situation where tuna and salmon have become high-end ingredients in Japan since the Meiji Restoration until today.
Xiao Niangpi couldn't wait to try it. Putting aside whether the Japanese food is delicious or not, the food is indeed better-looking in terms of color, smell and taste.
She would eat a little bit, taste it, and spit it out if it didn't taste good.
"Well, the taste is okay, I can accept it." After the lady gave everyone a taste, everyone picked up their chopsticks to taste it. There aren't many things, and one person can't hold more than a few chopsticks before they're all gone.
At this time, another maid came in carrying staple food.
The fourth step: dry food dishes with rice
Octopus: Also known as takoyaki, the octopus is grilled on a stone. The resulting dry matter is then sun-dried.
Octopus is an important ingredient handed down from the Heian period and has always been loved by the Japanese. In "Taikoki", there is a record that Hashiba Hideyoshi presented three thousand octopus to Oda Nobunaga.
Chu cut: fish cut into thin strips and dried in the sun, usually cut into thin slices and eaten. In "Azuma Mirror", there is a record that Yoritomo Minamoto was very happy after receiving the tsuke presented by his retainers.
Steamed abalone: Steam and dry raw abalone, cut into slices and eat.
It is a dry product for dry birds and pheasants. When people talk about birds after the Heian period, they mostly refer to pheasants.
After peace, the public's consumption of birds gradually decreased. But the children of the Wu family still eat it. Birds obtained by hunting with eagles are regarded as an important tradition in maintaining the martial arts of the martial arts disciples.
A fen hai is a container for dividing rice into plates.
Chen Xi's little hand held a small Japanese bowl just right, with only a little rice in it as big as her little fist. Pair with the above dishes and enjoy in small bites.
"Master, I think the taste is pretty good. Although it's not as delicious as the wasabi octopus dish you made, these light flavors still have a different flavor." Chen Xi said with satisfaction.
After finishing the staple food, it’s time for some pickles. Yang Fan didn't know the logic behind the arrangement of the Japanese banquet. He had always thought that the people on these islands had strange minds.
Step 5: Salt and spicy pickles called
Kaigetsu, a salt-pickled fish dumpling produced in the Bizen area during the Nara period, was later introduced by the imperial court as a dish for palace banquets.
Miso Abalone is a cold soup cooked with miso.
Old sea rat salted sea cucumber, a tribute from the Mikawa area during the Heian period.
Snapper offal cooked in a salty and spicy way. The Japanese dietary book "Honjosoku" records that it is made with the intestines of sea bream as the main ingredient.
However, he soon discovered that his wives were extremely nervous and actually ate with gusto. They also complained that the master always used scaremongering to scare them. It's not that scary.
Okay, the main food and pickles are finished, now it’s the turn of the drinks. Yang Fan was also convinced. This is a weird program.
Entry 6 to 9: all drinks. Yang Fan guessed that they were not good drinkers, as they were just drinking to keep their stomachs occupied. Now is when the banquet really begins.
Six wines, wine glasses for drinking
Seven bottles filled with wine: Zi
Eight containers called water piles contain rice soaked in water.
Nine bottles filled with water.
Okay, here we are finally done with the process, and all that’s left is to eat rice soaked in water and drink sake. Yang Fan was also drunk.
Yang Fan has seen masters working hard to enjoy themselves on various construction sites. There are even people who use steel nails dipped in soy sauce, chattering and drinking at the same time. It is said that iron nails dipped in soy sauce are eaten with wine. There is a special taste that makes people want to stop eating.
But after eating all the food, soaking the rice with water and drinking it seems strange.
The ladies, of course, just tasted the sake and then put it down, without even looking at the rice soaked in water.
"Master, this is a piece of shit. It's off-putting just looking at it. And this sake is too bland and not good to drink." Xiao Niangpi complained.
Yang Fan took out a bottle of plum wine and said, "Let's have this, I know you won't be used to drinking it." By the way, he took out the wasabi octopus he made last night and a large sashimi platter.
The amber plum wine is really beautiful when poured into a glass. I could smell the sweet aroma even before I drank it. The ladies were happy, and they loved sweet wine.
When Yang Fan sometimes has free time, he likes to smoke while holding a glass of plum wine, and drink a few drinks in the garden as the sun sets.
The color of fireworks is bright and extinguished between the fingers, and the color is light and dark, glazed and amber thick. It has a unique flavor.
Several people were talking and laughing, drinking and chatting. At this time Aunt Mei came in with a strange expression on her face.
"Sir, Donkey Dan is so sick that he's kneeling downstairs and won't get up. Even if I ask him to come up and talk, he won't."
The little girl closed her eyes and endured the pungent feeling of the wasabi octopus rushing straight to her forehead, and wiped her tears with a tissue. Throwing away the tissue, he said to Aunt Mei, "Is this bastard causing trouble again?"
