Washoku, the Fermented Cuisine

the current — the mouth

Chapter Three — Shōjin Cuisine: Forgoing Flesh, Seeking Umami in the Microbe

第三章 — 精進料理・肉を断ち、旨味を菌に求める

Introduction — Beyond the Subtraction

In the last chapter, we saw temple nattō as a precious source of protein for the Zen temple, where flesh and fish were forsworn. In this chapter, we enter that very table. Shōjin cuisine.

In the prologue, we called washoku a cuisine of subtraction. Shōjin cuisine may be called the most thoroughgoing form of that subtraction. No flesh, no fish, no egg. But subtraction carries one fate: unless what is taken away is filled by something else, the dish grows thin. The table that subtracted the umami of the animal — with what, then, did it fill that depth? With plants, with time, and with the microbe.

I. The Precept of Not Killing

"Shōjin," in its origin, is a Buddhist word: to strive at the Buddhist way, putting aside one's appetites.1 At the core of its food is the precept of non-killing — to take no living thing's life. By this precept, animal ingredients — flesh, fish, egg — are set away from the table.1

Not these alone were set away. The strongly scented vegetables — negi (allium), garlic, garlic chives — the "five pungent roots" (gokun), too, were forbidden as things that disturb the heart and stir the passions.1 What is left is vegetables, grain, beans, seaweed, mushrooms. Ingredients severely few. Shōjin cuisine is nothing other than an endeavour: how, within this severe constraint of subtraction, to make a flavour rich.

II. Dōgen, and Cooking as Practice

It was the Zen of the Kamakura period that raised this severe cooking to a finished system. Dōgen, founder of the Sōtō school, crossed to the Southern Song to study Zen, and brought its way of food back to Japan.2

For Dōgen, cooking was practice itself. He wrote the Tenzo Kyōkun (Instructions for the Cook, 1237), setting down the cook's frame of mind, and the Fushuku-hanpō (1246), expounding the manners of the meal.2 At the head temple, Eihei-ji, the tenzo who keeps the kitchen was held one of the temple's heavy offices. To cook, and to eat, is practice no less than seated meditation — this thought lies at the root of shōjin cuisine.

And in the Tenzo Kyōkun a concrete formula of cooking, too, was set down. The five tastes — sweet, hot, sour, bitter, salty. The five methods — raw, simmered, grilled, fried, steamed. The five colours — red, blue-green, yellow, white, black.3 This formula of combining five tastes, five methods, five colours would, in time, pass beyond shōjin and become the very framework of Japanese cuisine itself. One origin of washoku being a cuisine "tasted by the eye as much as by the tongue" lies here.

III. A Dashi Without the Animal — The Synergy of Kombu and Shiitake

It was in the dashi that the constraint of subtraction bore its most brilliant contrivance.

The katsuobushi that upholds washoku's broth is made from fish. In shōjin cuisine, which shuns killing, it cannot be used.4 So a shōjin dashi, drawn from plants alone, was devised. From kombu, dried shiitake, soybean, gourd shavings — from such plant ingredients, the broth is drawn.

Here lay a discovery. From kombu comes one umami substance. From dried shiitake comes another. And when the two are joined, an umami arises far deeper than either alone.4 Without borrowing the animal's power, by crossing plant with plant, a full flavour can be made — this the shōjin kitchen knew by experience.

Why does joining the two deepen it? That secret was captured in the word "umami" only much later, in the twentieth century. That story we trace again in Chapter Five. What is to be confirmed here is a single point: that the flesh-forsaking table sought its depth in plants, and in dried things — that is, in things that had passed through time.

IV. The Bean as Flesh, Fermentation as Flavour

Among plants, what bore the place of flesh most largely was the soybean.

Forgo flesh, and protein runs short. What made up for it were the soybean and its preparations. Tofu, yuba, fu, and the nattō of the last chapter. Indeed, shōjin cuisine brought back from China, together with Zen, the methods of foods such as tofu, nattō, manjū and tea.5 The soybean was, to people who ate no flesh, the very meat of the field.

And what bore the centre of flavour was the fermented seasoning. Miso and soy sauce — the descendants of that hishio traced in Chapter One. For the want of animal fat and broth, the deep umami of miso and soy sauce ran a core through the dish.5 These ancient fermented seasonings became, at this flesh-less table, all the more indispensable as pillars of flavour.

Forgo flesh, and seek the lost umami in plants, in the soybean, in fermentation. The microbe takes the place of flesh. Shōjin cuisine was that vast system of substitution.

Closing — From the Temple, to the Table

Shōjin cuisine, in time, goes out beyond the temple. In the sixteenth century, Sen no Rikyū, drawing inspiration from this devotional cooking, gave rise to the kaiseki of the tea ceremony.6 The formula of five tastes, methods and colours; the umami drawn from plants; the flavour built on fermented seasonings at its core — these contrivances honed by shōjin cuisine became the framework of all washoku, flowing down to this day.

Here the watercourse joins into one. The Zen, and the tea ceremony, traced in the first paper, The Source — and this flesh-less table — were of a piece. The heart's precept of not killing had changed the drawing of the dashi and decided the shape of things on the plate. The story of the heart had, before one knew it, become the story of the table.

Yet there is in washoku a food born, contrary to the shunning of killing, by actively fermenting fish. In the next chapter, we turn toward that unlooked-for road — the origin of sushi.

Sources

This text is the third chapter of a white paper on washoku. The facts set down rest on the cited sources. Miso and soy sauce themselves are old fermented seasonings reaching back before shōjin cuisine (see Chapter One); this chapter does not mean that "shōjin cuisine invented them," but that, at the flesh-less table, they came to bear the centre of flavour. The synergy of umami substances and its scientific clarification are set out in Chapter Five. This chapter treats shōjin cuisine from the cultural and historical side, and does not enter into health effects.

Footnotes

  1. "On Japan's Traditional Food 'Shōjin Cuisine'," dressing (Gnavi) (on "shōjin" being a Buddhist word for setting aside fine food and cultivating the spirit, on cooking with plant ingredients alone with no animal foods, aimed at avoiding killing and the stirring of the passions, and on strongly scented plants such as allium, garlic and garlic chives being restricted as the "five pungent roots"). https://www.gnavi.co.jp/dressing/article/21978/ / "Shōjin Cuisine," Wikipedia (on plant-based eating under the non-killing precept and the avoidance of strongly scented plants). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B2%BE%E9%80%B2%E6%96%99%E7%90%86 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. "Shōjin Cuisine — the Spirit of Zen That Shapes Food Culture," Kuishinbo Samurai (on Dōgen, founder of the Sōtō school, compiling after study in China the Tenzo Kyōkun on the cook's frame of mind and the Fushuku-hanpō on the manners of the meal, prizing cooking and eating as practice, and on the tenzo who keeps the kitchen at Eihei-ji being an important office). https://www.kuisinbosamurai.com/bimikiko/history/shojinryori.html / "Shōjin Cuisine," Wikipedia (on Dōgen bringing shōjin cuisine back from the Southern Song with Zen and writing the Tenzo Kyōkun [1237] and Fushuku-hanpō [1246]). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B2%BE%E9%80%B2%E6%96%99%E7%90%86 ↩ ↩2

  3. "The Little-Known World of Shōjin Cuisine," Hitosara Magazine (on Dōgen's Tenzo Kyōkun setting down in detail the combining of the five methods [raw, simmered, grilled, fried, steamed], five colours [blue-green, yellow, red, white, black] and five tastes [salty, bitter, sour, hot, sweet], and on its great influence on Japanese cuisine). https://magazine.hitosara.com/article/668/ / "On Shōjin Cuisine," Okui Kaiseidō (on the five tastes, methods and colours being prized in shōjin cuisine, Japanese cuisine being made according to this formula). https://www.konbu.jp/culture/japanese_culture/shoujin-ryouri.shtml ↩

  4. "Shōjin Cuisine — History, Origin, Vessels, Dishes, Thought," Zuitei (on katsuobushi being unusable in shōjin cuisine, which uses no animal ingredients, so that a shōjin dashi is drawn from soybean, gourd shavings, kombu, dried shiitake and the like, and on the synergy of the umami substance guanylate from dried shiitake and the umami substance glutamate from kombu making a compound dashi without animal foods). https://tamaplaza-washoku-zuitei.com/blog/2020/04/27/433/ ↩ ↩2

  5. "Shōjin Cuisine," Wikipedia (on shōjin cuisine bringing from China the methods of foods such as tofu, nattō, manjū and tea, and combining wheat and soybean flour with plant oil and strong seasonings such as miso). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B2%BE%E9%80%B2%E6%96%99%E7%90%86 / "On Shōjin Cuisine," sharedine (on miso, soy sauce and other staple washoku seasonings being said to have developed together with shōjin cuisine). https://sharedine.me/media/know-how/diligence ↩ ↩2

  6. "Shōjin Cuisine — the Spirit of Zen That Shapes Food Culture," Kuishinbo Samurai (on Sen no Rikyū in the sixteenth century, drawing inspiration from shōjin cuisine, giving rise to the kaiseki served at the tea ceremony). https://www.kuisinbosamurai.com/bimikiko/history/shojinryori.html / "The Little-Known World of Shōjin Cuisine," Hitosara Magazine (on Sen no Rikyū devising kaiseki from shōjin cuisine). https://magazine.hitosara.com/article/668/ ↩