At this time, Yang Fan and his wife were tasting authentic sashimi and sushi in the castle tower.
In fact, Japan during the Warring States Period and afterward had not enough to eat. What kind of dazzling Japanese delicacies were there in later generations? What was on the table were all chefs brought by Yang Fan. According to the standards of later generations of Japanese food,
Made with fresh local fish.
There are only two foods on the table, which are real 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 of bean flour and chestnut flour. It is eaten with tea when drinking tea. It is a kind of liquid solidification.
Tea and snacks. This is very different from Chinese tea and snacks.
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 standard 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 country bumpkin."
The little girl just took a big bite and rolled her eyes at him.
Sugar-water shaved ice is not recognized by everyone, and is considered to be much worse than the ice cream in the country. 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 needs three plus numbers. Yang Fan’s back house is full of greedy little cats who like sweets. Their mouths are spoiled by the ice cream.
There was no such thing as a refrigerator in Japan at that time. Therefore, the ice cubes eaten in summer were collected from frozen rivers in winter and stored in underground ice cellars until the next summer.
Take it out and feed it to the nobles.
Fast transportation is required to ensure that the ice cubes do not melt.
Normally, 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 brave the hot summer days and drive 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 did not have sugar and rock sugar yet.
The sugar water at this time is actually the boiled juice of kudzu root. After the juice is collected, the syrup is boiled.
Pueraria lobata does not contain much sugar. It takes more than ten kilograms of pueraria root to make less than half a bowl of sugar water. This sugar water is still dark. The best quality is also amber. This kind of sugar is definitely not comparable to 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.
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Well, Yang Fan also put down his 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 the top banquet dishes from Japan."
Well, Xiao Niangpi’s two favorite things in life, apart from tasting delicious food, are getting a beauty sleep. Yang Fan often pinches her little face dotingly and says, “They have treated the lady like a pig.” Then the angry Xiao Niangpi
Repair it hard.
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."
The first thing a team of maids brought was the tableware. Because people in Japanese castles sit on the floor. The floor 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.
First, on the dining table called Gaobao, there are three kinds of tableware: chopstick holders, chopsticks, and spoons, as well as four kinds of seasonings (醤, wine, vinegar, and salt), which is called
Once in.
The second step: Gosei rice. A bowl full of brown rice is called Gosei rice, which is a courtesy for banquets to show hospitality. Since the Kofun period, steamed rice with less water content and harder was used, and in Heian
In the later period, "ひめrice" was cooked in a way similar to modern rice cooking. In the Edo period, the staple food was still this tradition.
The third step: main dishes. Nine main dishes.
The two bowls in the center hold hot and cold soups:
The hot clam juice on the right is a hot soup made from abalone.
The cold sauce on the left is a cold soup made by putting carp meat on the plate, mixing it with salt and soup, and adding yam and mustard.
The five-plate dishes in the upper half include five types of fish dumplings: carp dumplings in the middle, sea bream dumplings and seabass dumplings on the right, and soup (gravy dumplings) on the left. Dumplings (なます) are fish and birds cut directly into thin strips
, mixed with vinegar. Zhiguo is a hot soup made from cooked fish.
Three plates in the lower half:
Kamaboko is made by spreading fish paste on bamboo skewers or branches and grilling it.
Taiyaki: grilled sea bream.
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 (sprinkle with salt, pour in wine and grill).
When this main course is served, you can see that fish is the focus of the dish, especially sea bream is the most high-end ingredient, followed by carp and seabass.
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 after 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 in Japan is indeed better-looking in terms of color, fragrance 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 and tasted it. There were not many things, and each person couldn't pick up a few chopsticks before they were gone.
At this time, another maid came in carrying staple food.
The fourth step: dry food dishes with rice
Yakiaki: also known as takoyaki, the octopus is grilled on a stone and then dried in the sun.
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 Hideyoshi Hashiba offered three thousand octopus to Oda Nobunaga.
Akatsuki: fish (especially salmon) cut into thin strips and dried in the sun, usually cut into thin slices and eaten. In "Azuma Mirror", there is a record that Minamoto Yoritomo was very happy after receiving the tsunamis offered by his retainers.
Steamed abalone: steam the raw abalone, dry it, and cut it into slices to eat.
It is a dry product of dried birds and pheasants. When talking about birds after the Heian period, most of them refer to pheasants.
After the peace, the consumption of birds by the ministers gradually decreased. However, the children of the Wu family still ate the birds obtained by hunting with eagles, and regarded them as an important tradition to maintain the martial arts of the children of the Wu family.
A わけつきわけつき is a container for dividing rice into plates.
Chen Xi's little hand held a Japanese-style small bowl just right. There was only a little bit of rice as big as her little fist in it. Pair it with the above dishes and taste it in small bites.
"Sir, 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 was time to order some pickles. Yang Fan didn't know the logic behind the arrangement of the Japanese banquet. He always thought that the people on these islands had strange minds.
Step 5: Salt and spicy pickles called "Kakumon" and "Kakumon"
Umitsuki (くらげ), a salt-pickled fish produced in the Bizen area during the Nara period, was later introduced by the imperial court as a dish for palace banquets. (You cannot eat too much pickled fish, as it causes cancer. Yang Fan strictly prohibited them from eating more than three chopsticks.
)
Clam miso abalone and miso are cooked together in a cold soup.
Old sea rat (ほや) salted sea cucumber, a tribute from the Mikawa area during the Heian period. (This thing is super disgusting, it is salted raw sea cucumber intestines. Yang Fan will not eat a bite. It looks like vomit.)
The sea bream innards made using sea bream and salt. The Japanese dietary book "Benchao Food Supervisor" records that it is made with sea bream intestines as the main ingredient. (Yang Fan thinks this is more disgusting, not as good as sea cucumber intestines.)
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. How could they be so scary?
Okay, we've finished the staple food and pickles, now it's the wine's turn. Yang Fan has also taken it. This is a weird procedure.
From the 6th to the 9th entrance: all were drinks. Yang Fan guessed that they were not good drinkers. They were just filling their stomachs before. Now is the real start of the banquet.
Rokujin sake cup (さかずき), a drinking glass
Seven bottles filled with wine: Chozi
There is a container called Mizuo (みずまり) in Hajin that contains rice soaked in water.
Jiuchin is a basket filled with water (ひさげ).
Okay, at this point, the program is finally finished. All that's left is to eat rice soaked in water and drink sake. Yang Fan is also drunk.
Yang Fan has seen masters who enjoy themselves hard on various construction sites. They even dip steel nails in soy sauce and drink while chattering. It is said that iron nails dipped in soy sauce and drunk with wine have a special taste that makes people want to stop.
But after eating enough food, soaking rice with water and drinking wine, this seems strange.
Naturally, the ladies just tasted the sake and then put it down, without even looking at the rice soaked in water.
"Sir, 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 try this, I know you guys won't be used to drinking it." He also took out the wasabi octopus he made last night, as well as a large sashimi platter.
The amber plum wine was poured into the glass, and it looked really good. Before I drank it, I could smell the sweet smell. The ladies were all happy, as they like 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 dark between the fingers, and the color is rich in glazed amber. It has a unique flavor.
A few people were laughing and drinking, when Aunt Mei came in with a strange expression on her face.
"Sir, Donkey Dan is so sick that he can't get up from his knees downstairs. Even if you ask him to come up and talk, he won't do it."
The little girl closed her eyes and endured the pungent feeling of the mustard octopus rushing straight to her forehead. She wiped her tears with a tissue. She threw the tissue away and said to Aunt Mei, "Is this bastard causing trouble again?"