Kikkoman Corporation

Just one picture can illuminate a distant and sometimes ambiguous past. Through the rich collection of images found in Japan's centuries-old paintings and prints, today we can more clearly appreciate its ancient customs and lifestyles. Our current series examines Japan's food culture through the vivid imagery of its past. In this second installment we focus on the history and evolution of banquets and their role in Japanese society.

Abundance and Quality

Since time immemorial, in countries around the world, the preeminent occasion for eating and drinking has been the banquet. Banquets have always marked an out-of-the-ordinary moment plucked from the routine; a significant event in time where the hierarchies of status and rank that govern daily life and society are set aside and people may deepen their solidarity as members of a particular family, group or community. At a banquet, high quality food and drink are typically supplied in abundance to help people overcome their reserve and enjoy this fellowship. The merrymaking and enjoyment that are so essential to the banquet atmosphere are difficult to achieve if there is a shortage of good food and drink!

Between the eighth and ninth centuries, a number of institutions and elements of Chinese culture were introduced to Japan. The Japanese aristocracy looked up to China's culture and emulated its style in many aspects of their lives; illustrations and paintings of banquets held by Japan's aristocracy during that era offer a clear idea of the Japanese mindset of those times.

Banquets were held in grand Chinese style, with guests gathered and seated on chairs around a dining table. This was quite a contrast to classic Japanese banquet customs wherein which each individual sat before their own separate tray-table, directly upon the floor. The Chinese-style banquet table was set not only with chopsticks, but with spoons, which later disappeared from customary use in Japanese dining culture. Also following Chinese custom, food was served piled high on each dish laid out on the table.

Honzen Style

By the tenth century, however, the enthusiasm for things Chinese began to wane, and traditional Japanese styles of banqueting made a comeback. The host of the banquet, as well as each guest, partook of food and drink served upon low individual tray-tables set up around a room. These tray-tables were small, so the number of dishes and the amount of food that could be served at one time were necessarily limited.

In order to serve more dishes, the number of tray-tables was increased, so that in addition to the main tray-table, or honzen, additional dishes were served on a slightly smaller second tray-table; literally, the ni-no-zen. The honzen held the principal dishes of rice, soup and three side dishes (san-sai), while the ni-no-zen held an additional soup and two more side dishes: thus the complete banquet menu comprised two soups and five side dishes.

This two tray-table banquet format became the very basic standard of serving guests, and anything more luxurious entailed increasing the number of tables; there were apparently banquets with individual services of three, then five, and at the most seven tray-tables apiece. Sixteenth-century records of an opulent banquet tell of 32 types of dishes accompanied by eight different soups, served on seven tray-tables.

This style of banquet, at which two or more tray-tables were set out for each guest, became known as honzen ryori. This style became the established pattern practiced at weddings and other formal occasions well into the middle of the twentieth century. As far as appearances were concerned, the honzen ryori allowed for a luxurious array of dishes to be arranged before each guest in such a way so as to impress them with their host's generosity. The food, however, was very likely to grow cold and hard before it could be consumed; in most cases there was such a great quantity that guests could not eat it all, forcing them to take leftovers home with them. Ultimately, this was not a very thoughtful way of serving food.

Kaiseki Style

About four hundred years ago, the development of the tea ceremony encouraged more highly refined and distinctively Japanese patterns of serving food and drink, and a new style of banquet cuisine called kaiseki was born—a style that was more reasonable, as well as better-tasting.

The kaiseki meal comprises dishes of small, individual portions that can be consumed completely; in principle, food used merely for the purpose of decoration or display is not served. Only one tray-table is used for each guest, and dishes are served only as they fit on the table. The service is timed with the progress of the meal and the preparation of the dishes, while empty utensils are cleared away when new dishes are presented.

Under the influence of the newly developed customs of kaiseki cuisine, eating establishments proliferated, mainly in the large cities, beginning in the eighteenth century. In Edo (Tokyo), then a city of one million inhabitants, there are said to have been more than 1,000 such restaurants, and the culture of “banqueting” became quite sophisticated.

Banqueting was an occasion to enjoy not only good food and drink, but other pleasures as well. Performances by female entertainers during the meal became customary; these featured singing and dancing, and often the guests found themselves caught up in the revelry.

By the late nineteenth century, many of the older practices associated with banquets had fallen away, and today's banquets are generally focused on the enjoyment of food and drink for its own sake—yet it is undeniable that the history and practices of Japan's banquet culture contributed greatly to the further modernization and refinement of its unique cuisine.

Author's profile

Isao Kumakura was born in Tokyo in 1943. He taught at Tsukuba University from 1978 to 1992 and then held the position of Professor of Japanese Culture at the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka. Since 2004, he has served as professor emeritus of the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka and as director of the Hayashibara Museum of Art, Okayama. Dr. Kumakura is the author of many publications on Japanese food culture and Japanese tea culture; his most recent publication is Nihon Ryori no Rekishi (History of Japanese Food).