In Kurosawa's film Seven Samurai, a story about the Warring States Period in Japan was told. Robbers on the mountain plan to go down to grab rice during the autumn harvest. In order to defend the fruits of their hard work, farmers recruited ronin to defend their villages. They have no money, and the reward they can give the samurai is rice.
Poor and middle peasants, relying on the condition of having food, really attracted seven warriors with high martial arts. The Seven Samurai claimed that they had come to eliminate evil and promote good, so they were not paid. In fact, they were really moved by the conditions of eating rice, because it was not easy to eat a full meal in Japan at that time, let alone a meal, which was irresistible.
However, when the samurai found that the villagers had given them all the rice, but they ate small rice and wild vegetables, they felt sorry for themselves, so they gave all the rice they got to the old, young and old women and children in the village. In the end, all seven warriors died in battle to defend rice and bravely fight against robbers.
This story shows how precious rice is in ancient Japan, and people can do anything to get it. It is said that people die for wealth and birds die for food, but ancient Japanese can die for a meal.
Since Shoto Kutaishi introduced Buddhism from China to Emperor Kotoku, he made great innovations and decided to make Buddhism the state religion. According to Buddhism, what you eat will change and eating pork will turn you into a pig. In short, eating meat will fall into the way of animals. Later, the popular Shintoism also believed that eating the meat of quadrupeds was not only a filthy behavior, but also a sin. Nobunaga hated the monks of Bi Rui Temple for supporting his enemies. He set fire to Hiei Mountain, killing more than 3,000 people, one of whom was eating meat.
In the 8th century, Emperor Wei Xiao, who believed in Buddhism, issued a "ban on meat". Since then, successive emperors have repeatedly issued decrees prohibiting eating meat. Under a series of bans, Japanese aristocrats have kept away from meat and developed the habit of being vegetarian. ?
It was not until 1876 that Emperor Meiji ordered the lifting of the "meat ban" that lasted for more than 1000 years. Although the ban has been lifted, the living habits that people have developed since ancient times cannot be changed overnight. Therefore, Emperor Meiji set an example and took the lead in eating meat in an attempt to change the Japanese eating habits and enhance their physical fitness.
The ban is mainly aimed at the nobles and the upper class. Because it involves their character and image, the nobles strictly abide by the ban and are ashamed of eating meat. But for civilians who don't need to care about their image, they can go their own way. However, Japan is short of products, even rice is seriously insufficient, and animal husbandry is even less developed. Where can we eat meat?
By the Warring States Period in Japan, due to the war, agricultural output was reduced, and it became more and more difficult to eat. Even the rich eat frugally. At that time, ordinary people only had millet and two pickled radishes for each meal. The main food is just rice, a fish two fingers wide, a small dish of pickled radish, a cup of boiled wild vegetables and a small bowl of miso soup.
During the Warring States period, ordinary soldiers ate coarse grains such as wheat, millet, barnyard grass and taro. Samurai food is better. They can eat vegetable rice cooked with brown rice and vegetables, and sometimes white rice. The most luxurious meals are made of white rice, vegetables, fish, shellfish, chicken and so on. But only lords or senior soldiers can eat it occasionally.
In order to be easy to carry and save meal time, samurai usually take tea soaked rice or rice balls as their staple food when marching.
The general method of cooking rice in tea is to cook the rice and then let it cool. When eating, wash it down with hot tea, add a little salt, and add dried plums, seaweed and other ingredients. Some wealthy soldiers will add some fish to accompany their meals when they drink tea and eat rice. The tea used for soaking rice is generally green tea, which is cut into strips after compaction and brewed with rice. Before the final battle in the narrow fight, Nobunaga danced a village dance first, and then recited the famous poem, "Fifty years of life is like a dream. If the living side dies, why should a strong man regret it? " Finally, he drank a bowl of tea, made rice and went to war. From this, it can be seen that the super famous Noyong Yoshida, who is determined to "build a martial arts world", only used a bowl of rice to satisfy his hunger before the war.
Japan has a small territory, earthquakes at its feet, white waves around it and poor products. Due to the shortage of arable land, barren land and low grain output, Japan has been short of food because of its large population. Ancient Japanese did not have the habit of having three meals a day, but mostly had two meals a day. The habit of eating three meals a day did not appear until the edo period. Japanese usually only eat breakfast and lunch, and have to work in the morning and afternoon, so they must eat to maintain their physical strength. In the evening, they have a rest time. At that time, people had no nightlife. As long as they go to bed early, they won't be hungry and can save a meal. This habit is not only observed by farmers, but is almost unwritten from the emperor to the samurai.
During the Warring States period, wars were frequent, young and middle-aged laborers went out in succession, farmland was abandoned, and grain harvest was even worse. Although Japan is a rice-producing country, almost all farmland in the country is growing rice, but because of the low rice production, the army needs a lot of military food, and rice has become the main strategic material collected by celebrities everywhere. Farmers have worked hard for a year, and almost all the rice collected will be sent to the Lord's castle as an annual tribute. They can only eat small rice and wild vegetables. Some farmers have never even tasted their own rice in their whole lives. Rice is a real luxury for ordinary people.
At that time, Takeda and Imakawa joined forces to attack Songshan City where Musashi's North Island family was located. The two armies fought hard for many days, and the water source of the North Island Army was cut off, which made them desperate. Takeda and Imagawa proudly wait for each other to surrender. However, they suddenly found that the defenders of Songshan City washed their horses with water in the most conspicuous place at the head of the city. They thought that the defenders of Songshan City had no drinking water, but they still had enough water to wash their horses, which made them very depressed. We had to sit down and negotiate with each other and finally reached peace. Later I learned that there was no water in the city at that time. In the past, soldiers used rice to wash horses in Chengtou. They will pour the rice out of the basin from the horse, which looks like washing it with water from a distance. At that time, most soldiers were ordinary farmers. They seldom see a lot of rice dumped in their lives, so from a distance, even if they have doubts, they will never dream that it is rice!
Later, Japanese invaded China and occupied three northeastern provinces. People in Northeast China are not allowed to eat rice, which is an economic crime. This tyrannical behavior is not only related to the brutal nature of the invaders, but also related to the historical memory of the Japanese. They think it is natural that ordinary people can't eat, and only the elite can eat. We are all like this, not to mention the colonial people.
In Japan, where food is in serious shortage, the thing that makes them barely eat is radish.
When radish was first introduced to Japan, it could only grow to the thickness of fingers. Later, after the hard cultivation of Japanese farmers, the radish finally grew to arm thickness. Radish is nutritious and easy to grow, and soon becomes the staple food of farmers. Radish is also favored by nobles and put on their dining tables. Chefs also came up with many tricks to cook radishes, and it was almost impossible to have a feast without radishes later.
Because they can't eat meat, the rich can only try to eat fish and shellfish, which is the most luxurious food they can eat. Although Japan is an island country, it is rich in seafood, but neither nobles nor warriors will let go of seafood at will. They usually have only a small fish or a few pieces of pickled shellfish for dinner. Moreover, fish and shellfish basically do not appear at the same time, and only one meat dish can appear in a meal. This has something to do with the Japanese abiding by the "Don't act rashly" commandment of Zen Buddhism, and they despise gluttons. Of course, in ancient Japan, there was no abundant food for people to eat, so they could only abide by this commandment and be proud of it. ?
In China, the standard of official meals is four dishes and one soup, which has been the case since ancient times. However, in ancient Japan, even a luxurious banquet was three dishes and one soup. When Oda Xintai first met Imagawa Yoshimoto, it was three dishes and one soup.
Japanese aristocrats have always maintained a diet standard of one meat, two dishes and one bowl of soup. Even General Tokugawa Ieyasu, who unified the world hundreds of years later, would only eat one meat dish at a meal.
Tokugawa Ieyasu's diet is very frugal. He seldom eats fish. Every day, he eats some pickled radish and rice. Once he heard several maids complain: "The food now is really outrageous, and the only side dish is pickled radish."
Tokugawa Ieyasu, who is famous for his gentleness, said with a smile, "Well, since you don't like it, you won't eat it." Since then, the pickled radish used by maids as a side dish has been revoked, and maids can only eat white rice.
During the Warring States period, rice was often kneaded into rice balls in order to be convenient to carry when marching and fighting. When eating dumplings, you can eat them with your hands without any containers and chopsticks, and the dumplings with special ingredients are not easy to deteriorate. Making rice balls is also very simple, that is, kneading rice into balls by hand and compacting it repeatedly in the palm of your hand. In order to make the tasteless rice ball taste better, sometimes a small plum is put in it, and the more advanced one is wrapped in seaweed cut into small pieces.
Rice balls are made according to the standard of two rice balls a day, and then tied outside the dry food bag with a rope and obliquely tied on the shoulders of light or samurai. This kind of dry food can generally be carried for ten days with one foot.
In order to prevent rice balls from deteriorating, the Japanese mixed cooked rice with vinegar and kneaded them into rice balls, which can achieve the purpose of long-term preservation, and this became the embryonic form of sushi rice.
The main part of sushi is vinegar rice, which is rice mixed with white vinegar. The name of sushi comes from the pronunciation of "sour" in Japanese. In ancient Fujian, fishermen went out to sea all the year round. In order to maintain the quality of the rice they brought, they mixed it with vinegar. It was the Japanese pirates who plundered Fujian in the Ming Dynasty who first learned this kind of vinegar rice and brought it back to Japan.
At that time, Japanese fishermen often sliced some perishable fish to ensure long-term consumption. After the introduction of vinegar rice, some Japanese people mixed pickled fish slices with vinegar rice and thought it was delicious. Slowly, this practice spread and became sushi.
Because eating balls makes soldiers thirsty. In order to solve the problem, the soldiers all took roasted miso slices, which could be drunk as long as they were dissolved in water when eating on the battlefield, and later became miso soup.
Miso is made of soybean, salt and sake koji, and it tastes delicious. Because the diet in ancient Japan was weak, miso was needed for seasoning, otherwise rough millet and radish were difficult to swallow, so miso was indispensable in Japanese life. The Japanese later invented monosodium glutamate, which was based on their long-term experience in making and eating miso.
Another important food in the diet of Japanese samurai is dried noodles. Noodles were introduced into Japan from China in Muromachi era. Takeda Shingen army likes to cook noodles and vegetables together, and then season them with miso. This kind of noodles is rich in nutrition, which is very beneficial to enhance the physical strength of soldiers. Takeda's army has a strong fighting capacity and can withstand repeated fierce battles, which is related to eating this kind of noodles.
Because ancient Japanese samurai had no meat for a long time, they were seriously short of protein, and their physical strength could not be supplemented and their muscles could not grow, which had a negative impact on their combat effectiveness.
In order to show their noble status, the Ping samurai who were in power in those years stayed indoors all the year round and were all vegetarians. Although they can eat some tributes from all over the country, these foods are often too salty to digest for quality, such as dried salted fish and steamed brown rice. And there is no nutrition.
Ping's opponent is Genji, and their warriors live in the deep mountains of the East all the year round, training and practicing tirelessly, mainly with birds and animals. So powerful. Results In the Yuan-Ping War of 1 185, Ping's army was defeated, all Ping's family members threw themselves into the sea, and Emperor Ande, who was only 7 years old, died peacefully together. Genji can defeat the Ping family. In addition to political and military reasons, the physical differences caused by the different diets of the two samurai are also very important reasons.
Because of diet, the Japanese were short stature, so they were called "Japanese" in ancient China. This situation has not been reversed until World War II.
When the 19th Route Army fought in Shanghai, it took advantage of the short stature of the Japanese army and severely attacked it.
At that time, the 19th Route Army dug a deep trench in the defensive position, asked each soldier to take a stool, and then stood on the stool and fired. After the Japanese attack, China soldiers retreated from the trenches with stools. After Japanese soldiers jumped into the trenches they occupied in China, they fell into a trap and couldn't get out at all. As a result, all the China troops killed were wiped out in the trenches.
After World War II, with the rapid development of Japan's economy, Japan's meat and dairy products were in sufficient supply and grew taller. Today's Japanese may die if they are allowed to eat the food of their ancestors again.