What was Food Like in Ancient Japan? 

As I recall, in Seven Samurai it was a plot point that the ronin were paid in rice while the peasants subsisted on millet.

I remember reading James Clavell's novel "Shogun" many years ago and realizing how important was rice to the point it was a sort of value and a way to measure the power of a landlord.

Also of interest is the beriberi issue of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As Japan became more affluent, some people started eating mostly white rice (a prestige food) and ended up developing deficiencies. Hinting at a more varied diet among the poorer classes in the past.

It makes a lot of sense. Even purely logically, as Japan has lots of mountains, and rice is not suitable for very high altitudes, one should imagine that there were other crops in Japan besides rice.

Jason Kingsley's series on medieval food was amazing. I wonder how much it would differ from area to area. Even today, food varies a lot from country to country, and throughout the medieval period, Europe was perceived as much larger than today. Even though people did travel, it was not nearly as easy, and would have been a special event, not a recurring yearly event. Could be a cool video idea, to explore the difference in food from place to place.

I do appreciate the inclusion of multiple translations in the grain segment, as these are pretty uncommon words to learn and it makes it easier to follow along for people who are not the types to look up the unknown on the fly!

The different varieties of millet were a surprise to me, but everything else seemed somewhat obvious if you're at all familiar with Japanese cuisine. Barley tea, Soba (buckwheat), Soy Sauce (soybeans and wheat) are all staples. The real mystery is how the hell the Japanese stumbled upon the preparation for katsuobushi. Boiled, smoked a dozen or more times, then fermented and dried three times. Reminds me of the crazy stuff we do to ham in the US.

Topics like this are are what enthrall me the most about history. What did the every day person eat/drink/live in/sleep in/etc. Most historical records are about major figures doing something, or battles, etc, but the ordinary people tend to get unmentioned.

I am spending my Saturday afternoon enjoying a video about historical grain consumption in a country I have never been to, by an Italian in a Kabuto. I love it.

History of food is so fascinating, keep up the great content!

Another amazing video Raff. I can see and appreciate all of your hard research.

I'm glad you added a few translations for the cereals. A very interesting and captivating presentation.

Always a lot of knowledge and humor. Very cool channel, greetings! ✌

Hey, Metatron. I remember in The Shogunate's video about samurai loyalty where he says one former of loyalty was to the people (such as eating the same food as the peasants in times of war). I'd be interested in hearing your take.

Isn't this a common problem with terms like "stone age", "bronze age" and "iron age" as well? Seeing as how different parts of the world entered these ages culturally at different points in time.

I have to say that of all the youtube history community, I truly appreciate your videos the most :D

Very nice video on this underrated topic :))

Aaahhh, yes. That's why I love this channel. Loads of links in the description, the way I like it! Keep up the good work my good sir!

Ohhh this was Brilliant!! Thank you Maestro, I hope that this will be a Long series 🙂

Thanks to you for all the knowledge you have given me over the years i have resontly started retreving roman armor and equipment thanks to you its been esay plus i have been able to teach people alot of things.

I really enjoy seeing your videos on food, even moreso than the weapons and warfare ones. Here's hoping for more of these in the future!

I am remembering a scene in 7 Samurai. The farmers in the village had made a deal with the 7 heroes that they would feed them and in return the heroes would defend the village against a bandit gang. In this scene, one of the samurai points out that the villagers were feeding the samurai rice, while eating millet themselves. One samurai says that he had tried living on millet once and it was awful. The villagers were also shown harvesting barley. This movie was made in the 20th century, looking back on then end of the 16th, but it shows that while rice was a preferred food, millet and barley were also available and would be eaten in hard times.

This is something that I have been curious about for some time but didn't really know where to go for good information. Thank you Metatron 👍

Loved this topic! Keep going!

Oh this is fantastic! I live for the well researched historical content. Very cool! I'll come back to this year after year to keep it fresh in my brain. Also liking and commenting on this hoping the algorithm likes it and our angelic host is rewarded for his hard work.

Excellent research.

Incredible video as always metatron

Just found your channel today. I've been binging your videos. These are wonderful presentations.

You mentioned various grains. A Japanese restaurant I used to frequent had four kinds of noodles. A few dishes used rice noodles. Most noodle dishes had a choice of Ramen, Udan (thick and pasry white) and Soba (buckwheat). Anyone who didn't specify got ramen. I got a kick out of ordering "Soba Yakisoba". In the same restaurant someone there asked an elderly Korean woman, also a customer, for a recommendation. Instead of thinking that someone just wanted advice from a regular customer she was offended at being mistaken for Japanese and screamed at him for about five minutes. That is how much hate the Japanese occupation of Korea generated.

As someone who is a huge fan of Asian history videos like these are crazily interesting to me. Never miss a video from you Metatron. Keep up the education of the masses.

That was Awesome. Thanks Metatron

A whole food series? Awesome!

You even added french translation for each, thank you very much for this video. お疲れ様です。

We were literally just researching and talking about this very topic in our Azuchi-Momoyama living history group. We have also been researching and trying to apply our research in our historical reenactment in all culinary areas, including grains, meet, vegetables, and beverages. When I saw your video I very rarely click on a video that fast XD so great you have made this video! We hear about rice being eaten by the military on numerous occasions, including the ashigaru. Logistical documents refer to rice being rationed, and one of Tokugawa Ieyasu's orders he gives to his men in order to soften rice when they are unable to cook due to damp wood (soak the 'RICE' in water for multiple hours before consumption). However, there is still evidence that shows other grains being eaten as well (as you posit here). This led us to further our research on this to try and figure out the use of different grains and the reasons behind it. Two of articles we have been looking at explain the results of their research below: Verschuer and Cobcroft (2016) actually have this area as one of their research specialities (history of grains and cereals in Japan). They specifically challenge the notion that rice was the only grain eaten in Japan for millennia. However, they do this simply by stating there were other grains as well as rice. In addition, Tomasaburo (2016) adds: "In the past, Japanese barnyard millet was important in Japan as the staple food crop in districts where soil, weather conditions and irrigation systems were not suitable for paddy rice cultivation. When the rice crop suffered serious cool weather damage, the millet relieved people from starvation, especially in northeastern Japan. " All in all, the academic articles we have read so far seem to agree on the following: 1) Almost everyone thinks rice was the sole staple for everyone but this is not actually true, particularly for before the 17th century. 2) Other grains were eaten as well as rice. 3) Rice and other grains were used to supplement each other depending on the climate and what was easiest to grow. Specifically, if rice is not viable, then food is mostly to be found in other grains like millet, buckwheat, barely, etc. However, none of them have said so far that because rice was used in taxes that it was not commonly eaten. Would love to hear your thoughts on these, and many thanks for the info and sources, mate :) (Video has been liked, as always)

I very much enjoy your videos. Great information 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻.

Nothing like an informative and relaxing video exploring Japanese culture from the Metatron before bed👌🏻

Keep up the good work

Literally wondering this yesterday evening.

Nice job

Love it and would like to see more! 🤗

3 minuets in an you are making me imagine a Samuria Caveman walking into a swamp and plucking some grains from the wild grass and eating the first dish of rice.

Thanks!

I actually like this stuff when we get to know more about everyday stuff like food, clothing, construction and craftsmanship. Shadiversity video about barrels enjoyed very much.

so beautiful graphics.. You are really good.

It would be interested to see you making a content about japan’s history with onsen ♨️. I think watching this video was interesting and well crafted.

Most of the commoners and even most of the low rank samurai until the Edo period ate brown rice. Brown rice was so associated with low status and poverty that the Japanese got rid of it during the 20th century almost entirely and all started eating white rice, even though it's just carbs with no minerals and vitamins. When I lived in Japan I couldn't find any brown rice at the supermarkets.

Fascinating

You're very knowledgeable. Thank you for sharing it with all of us! :^)

Very good MT

i could watch a thousand videos on ancient japan, especially with regard to the lifestyle, food, clothing, culture, and sociaty of all classes within japan. this is a period of history which is difficult to get a holistic understanding of from main stream media sources. most people who think about japan dont even realize hokkaido wasent even part of the japanese empire. good stuff, would love to see more.

Plenty of fantastic info here! One bit that really got me, though, was when you showed vinyl records as you talked about tax records ;)

As a Japanese person I am happy you done a video on this!

Yes! New vid by Metratron!

1:05 Thank you for not being ignorant, unlike many historians

The dramatic boom with “rice” kills me every time

Right right at the end I was struggling to figure out how big all of this actually is until you said miles thanks for the help Metatron

A little story about rice in japan: As you mentioned the common people eat brown rice and white rice was for the upper class. But white rice without the outer brown layer lacks B1 vitamin and caused a sickness called kakke or beriberi among the rich people but not amongst the commoners who could only eat brown ones. They did not know what was causing this. Some guessed the problem was Edo since when they left they got better (white rice was less available outside Edo) When later they could industrialize the whitening of rice and make it available to more people the sickness spread really fast and was a big problem in the navy since they brought white rice to their voyages since it was going bad slower. Later a doctor named Takaki Kanehiro who was learing western medicine found out it it must be the food that causes this, since westerners did not had this problem so he managed to do an experiment to follow the exact route of a previous ship that had horrible beriberi result but instead of white rice he took bread and meat (since he thought the problem was protein deficiency). The experiment was success. Only those who did not follow the diet got the sickness. But meat was expensive so he replaced them with barley which is rich in protein (and also with the real reason B1 vitamin). This eliminated beriberi from the navy. Altough int the army doctors opposed him and stayed with the white rice for a while, but in the end they also gave in.

Love your content Metatron. found you originally through your reaction to the woman saying Rome didnt exist. I originally commented asking about a video on Yasuke, but realized you had done one and i just hadnt looked hard enough. Viewing that video currently and enjoying the information and your view on it. Deleted my original comment for the sake of not having you possibly repeat yourself by saying you did one. again love your content man.

Thanks.

Now this is that real good shit I subbed for. I know how commoners lived in so many different ancient cultures from their daily habits down to the foundations of their buildings but next to nothing about anything like this on Japan

quality content that made me much more grateful with corn and flour stocks in my home

Funny that rice is the only one depicted, yet samurai dueling in a wheat/grain field is a popular trope.

Really interesting start to the series! 👍 It would be fascinating to see a comparison of the relative efficiency of various cereal crops the Japanese were using? Both in terms of yield per square metre, and in terms of relative protein & carb yield per cupful? I find it really curious how the current image of "rice in Japan" is very much centered around white (hulled) rice, although you mentioned briefly that in the past brown (unhulled) rice was used to feed the workers? I wonder if the transition between the two was technology-based as in the West, where white flour started out as a luxury food and (thanks to industrialisation) rapidly became the norm for some time, until increased nutritional knowledge led to a move back towards wholegrains...

Neolithic area just means for me when people started to settle down, this may vary hugely across the globe. So it is less about a time and more about a cultural event in given society.

Anybody else hear a duck at 10:38? Sneaky, sneaky, sir. 😉✌️🤘🖖

Hey, Metatron... something we share in common is apparently a degree in Japanese Language and Culture. Awesome. :) I can say in my studies we were taught that rice was not a _staple_ of Japanese diet until after the Meiji Restoration (maybe the Edo period), and it was, at least to the common folk, more used ceremonially than as a daily food item. I think a number I vaguely recall is something like 40% or something like that was the rice consumption. So definitely in the same general area you describe.

Just walking around my place, eating rice in fully functional and historically accurate Samurai armor.

Really interesting, do you have any books about the history of japan to reccomend?

Towards the end of the video, when you were talking about the different measures, I found most interesting. Are these measures still used or have they fallen into disuse? I'd guess, in the UK, much like the rod and chain measures are little used now. If my memory serves, an acre is a furlong by a chain; so not a "square" measurement. 640 acres to the square mile.

~Le siren game in the background. My favorite was the first one for ps2. I loved getting all archieve itens. The worldbuilding was so freaking good. Besides, I learned so much in this one video...

Lotus roots are actually pretty good. Although I've only had them in Chinese cuisine, it never occurred me the Japanese also used them. Indeed, in the US, Japanese cuisine is pretty much presented as sushi and kobe beef and not much else. Which is odd, given the number of American soldiers who took Japanese brides during the occupation of Japan following WW2, so you'd think they would have brought back to the States more than just two dishes...

This Video is perfect for my New larp group^^

Yay, finally about food!

Sushi, Shashimi, Teriyaki, Ramen, Wasabi, And Ginger yeah

Hope you can collab with Max Miller of Tasting History for a sample of ancient Japanese cusine.

Interesting, I enjoyed🎉🍚🍚🍚🍚🍚🎉

Oh man the next video never came. Cuz i really want to find a nice video as an example to show to a friend that for a large period of time Japanese society had a ban on meat. But apparently this knowledge is so trivial that no one had done a video about it.

It would be cool if you cook ancient dishes such as Roman and feudal Japanese in a video.

Mmmmmh.... Citadel paints and miniatures on the background....are those.....TAU? Metatron plays for The Greater Good? Shocking! But somehow...expected.... Cool stuff mate. = )

Hey Metatron, I'm not sure if you're interested in stories and myths but think you can do a video on legendary swords from Europe and Japan? Mostly because I enjoy stories and your channel, and I think you might be interested.

Nitpicking clarity note: slash and burn need not cut down the trees, and before metal tools probably didn't. You just have to kill the tree by "ringing (slashing)" it with a continuous cut around the circumference of the trunk through the bark and the phloem layer immediately beneath. This prevents the tree from distributing nutrients between the leaves (needles) and the roots, and is much easier than cutting through the whole tree with stone tools. If you kill the tree, it doesn't grow leaves (needles), thus allowing sunlight to reach your crops. However, you can't really plow this newly cleared ground because of the roots, so your "field" tends to look more like a garden and can be hard to recognize as a place for growing crops. This makes it easy to conceal, and hard to tax. If a peasant farmer were to leave a few meters of uncut forest between a road and the field, a tax collector is not going to see it. This of course also makes it difficult for historians to see it, as they depend on documentation written by the same class of people as the tax collectors. This type of cultivation (technically horticulture rather than agriculture) is also almost impossible to recognize archaeologically. The only reason (we think) we know it happened is because it still happens today, though often in the context of illegal, non-food crops. Coming up with a specific number for non-rice cultivation given the nature of slash and burn is impossible, and the importance of these crops would differ depending on region.

A bow of brown rice(mixed with multi-grains and mushrooms or sweet potatoes), pickled radish, dried sardine, ground yam, and miso soup.

Official records. That was a good one.

I looked but didn't see the next video on meat in Ancient Japan. Is it somewhere that I'm missing or has it not come out?

3:34 Hot rice being spread on nori with a spatula, my poor eyes can't unsee that.

Thank you; this channel has been informative; I was wondering if you know anything about the sokaku policy; I was wondering if after sokaku ban did Japanese traveled from one domain to another without a permission

Is there a 2nd part? I cant find it..

Bravo

I would love to see a cooking video covering millet. I’ve never seen nor eaten millet before, so it would be interesting to learn the basics of how it was cooked and eaten.

isnt foxtail the one used in dr stone?

I am more interested in those citadel paints on the back. What type of minies are you painting? Are you collecting some armies?

ok, but how does this unit of length relate to how much surface we are talking about? Is there a standard stripe width for farming land? Are we simply talking about however much land people maged to irrigate along the side of a water source? I am slightly confused.

Did he ever make that Part 2?

Do some videos on Aboriginal Australia please...

And apart of the differences about neolithic term "baggage" we need discuss the ethnic composition of populace and thus culturally dependent preferences. And yes i am refering to Ainu.

14:02 and how do you measure farming area in units of LENGTH??

Linfamy talks about Japanese history, religion, and yokai in under 10 minutes on his channel. Just giving him a shout out since he recently did a video on how rice was used as currency in medieval Japan.

If a cho is a measurement of length, what does it say about the area? Does one have to add 'square' mentally?

NOMENCLATURE ELITIST!! ....😉 Just kidding Metatron. Love your videos!!

There should be a documentary about japanese food in ancient Japan titled "Rice of the Samurai" :D