Washoku, the Fermented Cuisine

the current — the mouth

Epilogue — From 2013 to Now: What Lies Beneath the World Heritage

結章 — 二〇一三年から、いま・世界遺産となった和食、その底にあるもの

Introduction — Out to the Sea

The watercourse has come, at last, to the mouth. In the prologue, we raised the banner: before it was a cuisine of fire, washoku was a cuisine of microbes. And we went back to hishio, entered the nattō that is not kōji, visited the flesh-less table of shōjin, touched the fermented origin of sushi, passed through the core of dashi and umami, and arrived at the sa-shi-su-se-so of the kitchen.

Now, that stream is about to come out to the sea. The last place we make for is the year 2013 — the point at which the world reached out its hand to this cuisine of microbes.

I. 2013 — What the World Acknowledged

On 4 December 2013, "Washoku, Traditional Dietary Cultures of the Japanese" was inscribed on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.1 As a heritage of food, it followed such inscriptions as the gastronomic meal of the French and the Mediterranean diet.2

Here is a thing to keep in mind. What was inscribed then was not the dishes themselves — sushi, tempura. What was acknowledged was a set of practices around food that embodies the Japanese heart of "respect for nature" itself.1 And among its features was named precisely this: that, by the skilful use of umami, it had achieved a way of life low in animal fat.1

The world esteemed not the dishes, but the "heart" and the "umami" that lie behind them.

II. What Lay Beneath — Microbe and Time

Beneath that "heart that reveres nature," and that "umami" — what was there? Fermentation, the very thing this book has traced, one chapter at a time.

Umami, as we saw in Chapter Five, is, pressed to its end, the taste of time. And fermentation is the act of entrusting the making of flavour to the microbe, a small worker of nature. The human does not make it in haste. With salt one fends off decay, and the rest one hands to microbe and time, and simply waits. "To revere nature" — boiled down, is it not this stance of "entrusting, and waiting"?

The merit the world saw within washoku held, beyond the splendid plating and the fine work of the knife, one further, deeper layer. It was the very act of fermentation — of entrusting flavour to microbe and time.

III. The Mouth Meets the Source

Here, the three white papers close as a single watercourse.

In the first paper, The Source, we traced why the Japanese feel and think as they do — the very wellspring of that spirit. In the second, The Basin, we saw how that spirit gathered into the brewing of one piece of ground: Hekinan. And in this Mouth, fermentation came out onto the plate in the form of the table called washoku, and reached the world.

And yet, at that mouth, the core on which the world set its esteem was none other than "the heart that reveres nature"1 — the very spirit traced by the first paper, The Source. The water, about to go out to the sea, meets the source once more at the mouth. The story of food, having gone round, returns to the story of the heart. The single watercourse here, quietly, closes its ring.

IV. The Shore Called Now — Speed, and Waiting

But the shore called "now" has another face.

While washoku is esteemed across the world, in the Japan at its feet the younger generations grow distant from washoku, and the occasions for drawing dashi from kombu and katsuobushi at home are said to be growing fewer.2 Speed and ease cover over, little by little, the long time of fermentation. As hand-pressed sushi once omitted months of fermentation, so we, now, would have every flavour "at once."

What this book has traced is the value on the opposite side. To wait. To entrust. To eat time. This is no sentiment that pines for the old. It is an attempt to set forth, quietly, the question: in an age when all grows fast, what meaning lies in choosing, deliberately, the thing that takes time? To gaze, within the stream of things that change (ryūkō), at the thing that does not (fueki) — this, too, is a stance this country has held to since the days of Bashō.

Closing — Two Thousand Years, in a Single Bowl

At the last, picture a single bowl of miso soup.

A clear dashi, drawn from kombu and katsuobushi. The miso that dissolves into it. An everyday bowl, nothing remarkable. Yet at its bottom, two thousand years are flowing. From the days of hishio, a watercourse of microbe and time, built up, is surely flowing. When we take up the chopsticks, an unseen stream runs beneath the hand.

To taste, by the tongue, the watercourse on the plate. To taste, within a single spoonful, months, years — sometimes two thousand years — of time. That, perhaps, is the true meaning of what it is to eat washoku.

And this watercourse is not a thing only to read. One may stand by the bank of the stream, and, within the air of that land, taste time itself. But beyond that point — it is no longer the province of the written word. It is the beginning of the journey.

Sources

This text is the closing chapter of a white paper on washoku. The fact of the UNESCO inscription rests on the sources. The present state of washoku's transmission, too, rests on the sources, though its assessment admits of range; this chapter does not mean to convey one-sided pessimism or nostalgia. Throughout the book, the food of fermentation has been treated from the cultural and historical side, and health effects have not been entered into.

Footnotes

  1. "Washoku Is Inscribed on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage," Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (on "Washoku, Traditional Dietary Cultures of the Japanese" being inscribed in 2013 as an expression of the Japanese heart of "respect for nature," and on its having achieved a diet low in animal fat through the skilful use of umami). https://www.maff.go.jp/j/keikaku/syokubunka/ich/ / "Washoku Inscribed on UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage," nippon.com (on the inscription decided on 4 December 2013). https://www.nippon.com/ja/behind/l00052/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. "Washoku Inscribed on UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage," nippon.com (on the French gastronomic meal and the Mediterranean diet, among others, having been inscribed earlier as intangible food heritage, and on younger generations growing distant from washoku with the Westernisation of life, washoku being said to be in a critical state at home). https://www.nippon.com/ja/behind/l00052/ / "The Fifth Anniversary of Washoku's UNESCO Inscription!" Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (on Japanese restaurants increasing abroad and high attention from the world after inscription, while the transmission of washoku culture to the next generation has become a challenge at home). https://www.maff.go.jp/j/keikaku/syokubunka/wasyoku_unesco5/unesco5.html ↩ ↩2