Article

Ranging around 3000 km from north to south, Japan has a diverse climate and topography, with this diversity nurturing a variety of rich dietary cultures rooted in each region. Known collectively as “washoku,” this traditional Japanese cuisine is a major highlight for any visitor to Japan.

Washoku was registered as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2013. When applying for the registration, the Japanese government listed four main features of washoku: (1) diversity and freshness of ingredients, and respect for their inherent flavors, (2) an expression of natural beauty and the changing seasons, (3) close links with annual events, and (4) an exceptionally well-balanced and healthy diet.
The main contributor to washoku’s healthiness is thought to be the eating style known as “ichiju-sansai,” which literally means “one soup, three dishes.” Usually comprising one soup, one main dish and two sides, along with rice as the staple food, this style allows people to eat a variety of foods and thus absorb many micronutrients. Indeed, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare encourages people to eat this way as a health promotion measure.

Of course, contemporary Japanese dietary culture is constantly expanding, so someone might have burger and fries from a fast food restaurant for lunch and some pre-made sushi in a plastic pack for dinner, for example. However, meals at smaller restaurants or at regular family homes still take the ichiju-sansai form, albeit with variations in the number of dishes. So when did this way of eating become the norm amongst the Japanese people?

In both the East or the West, paintings and sculptures in the pre-modern era were mainly produced to commission from the aristocracy, the clergy or rich merchants, so they predominantly featured motifs with deep connections to the lifestyles and faiths of these groups. As such, though we still have paintings showing how the nobility feasted, there is much we still don’t know about how common folk ate back then.
Fortunately, very rare scenes of ordinary people dining can be found in Yamai no Soshi (Diseases and Deformities), a 12th-century illustrated scroll depicting a variety of maladies. This work was originally a single handscroll comprising 15 scenes, but these became separated over time and are now housed at Japan’s national museums and other institutions across the country. Let’s take a look at one scene: Man with Loose Teeth (Kyoto National Museum; National Treasure).

The picture depicts a man with dental problems and a woman, probably his wife, trying to look inside his mouth. The text at the side explains that the man has loose teeth and can’t bite into solid foods, which suggests he is suffering from tooth decay or periodontitis (gum disease).
The food the couple were eating is still laid out for us to see. The most eye-catching item is the rice-laden bowl with chopsticks stuck on top. Next to the rice, on the right from the man’s perspective, is a bowl of soup. This pairing of rice on the left and soup on the right still forms the core of washoku meals today. This picture reveals how this custom was already established in the 12th century.

There are also two plates apparently for side dishes and a bowl for seasonings like salt or vinegar (soy sauce or miso paste didn’t exist back then). The black rice and soup bowls have splashes of vermilion on both the outside and the inside, which reveals them to be lacquerware decorated with motifs on black lacquer. Regular folk with a certain standard of living probably ate with bowls like this.
We can’t tell what food the side dishes contain, but the man has an anguished look as he holds his empty stomach and contemplates all this food he can’t eat, so it must be something very delicious.

The ichiju-sansai eating style, the left and right pairing of rice and soup, and the lavishly decorated lacquerware are all traditions that have survived to the present day. However, new dining customs have also emerged since. For example, it is now very bad manners or even taboo to stick one’s chopsticks in rice like in the picture, so take care not to inadvertently imitate this particular practice!