Pathway to Japanese Literature

Deliciousness and unpalatability prove nutritional value.

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There is no deliciousness surpassing natural taste.

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Modern cuisine lacks aesthetic sensibility.

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Cooking is a matter of age; so too are one’s tastes in food.

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Those who prepare cuisine must diligently cultivate an interest in worthy tableware.

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Those who seek to create high-class tableware and beautiful vessels must be versed in gourmet cuisine.

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There is absolutely nothing that is sufficiently nutritious yet not delicious.
If it is delicious, nutrition necessarily exists.

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Taste perception has no path but to learn through experience.
Those who have had good experiences can prepare fine cuisine, possess refined taste perception, find happiness, and are highly qualified to partake of delicious fare.

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There is no pure Japanese cuisine today.

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Even in savoring cuisine, there exist lives fated to be assigned—third-class living, second-class living, first-class living, special-class living.
Furthermore, the cuisine prepared in accordance with these classes varies widely.

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Japanese cuisine had been reduced to a poor nation’s fare—the spawn of culinary researchers it produced—dishes paraded daily across radio and television.
This became the culinary research born from an impoverished Japan and its philosophy of nutrition-obsessed cooking.

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Culinary researchers flashed coquettish smiles and theatrical frowns across television screens while securing their livelihoods—single-mindedly debasing cuisine through boasts of wasteful extravagance—as this vulgar persistence swelled into cultural norm.

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Never rooted in true Japanese cuisine from its inception, the decline plunged valley after valley into degradation.
The spectacle grew unbearable to behold.
Those neglecting substance’s weight inevitably pursued superficial design alone.

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Since there are no unpalatable foods among those one desires, it is only when one is hungry.

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By heedlessly destroying the original flavors, modern people are failing to eat what is truly delicious.

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To create dishes that are nutritious, delicious, and visually appealing even without elaborate preparation—for chefs to instead make food that pointlessly deceives like tricking children speaks to their shamelessness.

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Even when speaking of Japanese cuisine, it cannot be definitively declared as such in simple terms.
For no sooner does one make such a declaration than problems emerge—endless quibbling drags on until the focus blurs entirely.
This held true in former times but has grown ever more pronounced of late.

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The reason the Japanese people have always loved sashimi and make it a staple of their diet lies, I believe, in their reverence for natural taste—the flavor inherent in nature itself—over processed flavors.

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The essential principle of cuisine lies in never destroying the inherent flavor of all things.
A chef who achieves this can stand before heaven and earth without shame; one could say there is nothing greater.

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Next came the problem of beauty.

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Cuisine too—only through being an epicure enamored of delicious things, fine things, and every manner of superior goods—could cooking with true integrity arise.

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Those who lack confidence in taste burden their cooking with unnecessary steps.

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Those who are content with low-quality tableware can only produce cuisine of that caliber.
People raised on such cuisine can only become people of that caliber.

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Even when we speak of cuisine, there exists a multitude of forms.
Restaurant cuisine, home cooking, fare favored by the wealthy, meals of the poor, salaryman-grade dishes, urban cuisine, rural cuisine, elderly preferences, youth preferences, dishes for children and adolescents, meals for the infirm….
All who make cuisine must understand these distinctions and must never impose only their own preferences.

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Engrave this in your mind: that there exists a world of taste this profound, a realm one must know to this extent.

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Even in the realm of cuisine, the arrogance of believing one has comprehended everything through this is impermissible.
One must always come to know that there exist things beyond even one’s wildest imaginings.

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New cuisine arises from satiety.

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What I ponder endlessly—so much that even I find it strange—is food: namely, the pursuit of deliciousness.
When I see people eating mediocre fare without concern, I cannot help but scorn them.
I still prepare my own meals.
Because I cannot abide eating three times daily what fails to satisfy me.
I desire a lifetime devoted to gourmet excellence.
The dearth of food discourse worthy of earnest attention renders my twilight years desolate.
In this too, I walk alone.

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The people referred to as culinary experts conducted cooking lessons on TV day after day.
In cuisine where what was perceived as delicious relied heavily on visual presentation, these so-called instructors appearing on TV cooking shows cooked while wearing wristwatches and rings—and in egregious cases, even went so far as to apply nail polish meticulously.
Seeing this made my appetite vanish.
Moreover, since these culinary experts were uniformly old men and women, the hands magnified on TV were likewise uniformly grubby.
As the very characters for “cuisine” (料理) suggest—“to consider principles” (理を料る)—if one was to debate what was delicious or unpalatable, one had to delve far deeper into the principles of deliciousness.

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Lured by the words “We’ll plate it beautifully,” one looked at the tableware only to find it was all junk again.
Let the lady instructors thoroughly consider this: tableware is the garments of cuisine.

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Declining tableware.
Today, most Japanese cuisine existed in a state that failed to satisfy us.
This meant that tableware’s decline could be said to stem from the culinary world’s decline.

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There is no deliciousness that surpasses freshness.

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The natural nutritional value and the integration of nutrition are the essence of taste.

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Low-quality people prefer low-quality tastes, find comfort in low-quality cuisine, and create low-quality dishes.

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Kyoto had long been where cuisine reached its highest development.
Here, the Imperial Palace had stood for centuries.
Moreover, surrounded by mountains on all sides, there was no fresh seafood worthy of forming the very essence of cuisine.
The ingredients provided there were tofu, yuba, zenmai (fiddlehead ferns), and such.
With these seemingly unpalatable ingredients, they had to devise dishes to gratify the palates of aristocrats and prestigious families.
It stands to reason that these ingredients and this local environment brought splendid cuisine into full bloom.

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Knowing things like when and where tuna is caught to be delicious or how sea bream ought to be eaten is regarded as the very mark of a culinary connoisseur.

But cuisine is not such a thing.
A gourmet who wishes to eat truly delicious things must first scrutinize their rice.
How many people, I wonder, truly understand the quality of rice and, equally, the quality of dashi kombu?

Gourmet pursuit is not about becoming knowledgeable.
One must properly understand the most commonly used, readily available ingredients that form the foundation of cuisine.

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Things like where the wasabi was harvested or how large a root was ideal were topics anyone could readily discuss.
But as for what kind of wasabi grater to use and how to grate it properly, surprisingly few people knew—even among connoisseurs.

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Speaking of which, kitchen tools in any household were not up to par.
I couldn’t help but feel that proper items—sharp kitchen knives, daikon graters, and especially planes for shaving katsuobushi—all of which should have been clean and fully functional, were not being adequately prepared in any household.

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“Listen here—cuisine is about realization, not preparation.”
“Master chefs are all about that, you see.”

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Compared to other realms, today’s culinary world proves utterly shallow.
The culinary world harbors a hole.
You could say it exists—yet its true nature remains unknowable.
To speak hypothetically: its existence amounts to nothing more than that.
In essence, one must know cuisine for cuisine’s sake—there lies no alternative path.
Then let them scrutinize these so-called experts in detail.

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To comprehend wasabi’s taste is to relinquish your fortune.

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If the body awaiting nutrition ceases to demand it, there remains neither deliciousness nor effect.

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Whether foreigner or Japanese, people did not seem to savor cuisine wholeheartedly.
They possessed the desire to enjoy taste perception, but there appeared to be no dishes in restaurants or homes that could be genuinely enjoyed.
They seemed led astray by this “nutrition” trend，mistaking a life of swallowing nutritional pills for one of wholesome eating.
What were called nutritional foods applied only to restricted individuals—such as patients or children when confined—while free people，who could eat whatever they wished，did not need to concern themselves with the clamorous theories of nutritionists preaching about vitamins，calories，and the like.

They should simply keep eating what they like.
It is ideal for them to resolve decisively not to eat anything unless it is what they like.

Meals assigned like those for chickens and pet dogs do not provide true nutrition.
Free people do not suffer from the supposed harms of picky eating that doctors warn against.
Before picky eating can cause harm, their palates will grow tired of it, and they will change their diet—so there’s no need to worry.

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Dishes created for commercial purposes developed as cuisine under the name of Japanese cuisine.
Separately, there existed banquet cuisine where the wealthy entertained numerous guests with presentation-focused decorative dishes—this too had long developed as an accepted form of Japanese cuisine.

Beyond these, regional cuisine familiar to commoners as daily meals—termed home-style dishes—occupied a representative position in Japanese food culture. If one imagined a hundred million Japanese people, ninety-five million lived by this simplified Japanese cuisine called home-style dishes; foolish though it might seem, they appeared to find their own enjoyment in traditional eating practices.

However, the majority of home-style dishes that the masses consumed daily were resigned cuisine—a pitiable state indeed.
They could not afford expensive ingredients; they knew nothing of culinary ingenuity; they revered old customs as sacrosanct—all because they resigned themselves to believing this was good enough.

It was not as though someone had exploited this—yet those troublesome cooking broadcasts persisted.

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The distinction between delicious and unpalatable was not meaninglessly established.
It served as an exact barometer of nutrition.

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Cuisine takes nature as its ingredients and, while satisfying humanity’s most primal instincts, elevates its technique almost to the level of art.

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“You are what you eat,” declared Brillat-Savarin (author of *The Physiology of Taste*).
One’s daily life—and when viewed broadly, their attitude toward life—could be discerned.

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To truly discern the taste of things, one must ultimately experience them through eating.
While continuing to eat it over and over, you would inevitably grow to dislike that food at least once.
A certain weariness set in.
It was only when this weariness arrived that you could clearly discern the true taste of that food.

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When it came to the true meaning of cuisine, there was nothing particularly difficult about it.
In short, it boiled down to eating delicious food.
However, even when speaking of delicious food, it had no relation to whether the price was high or low.
When people spoke of delicious food, some might think it came from ingenuity—but ingenuity alone would not suffice.

The quality of cuisine depended first on the quality of ingredients.
It hinged on their selection.
Therefore, discerning ingredients was essential.
This had not been emphasized much until now—it was a blind spot in traditional culinary theory.
The evaluation of which daikon radish, which sea bream, which bonito flakes were delicious—this had to come first, yet until now it had been left neglected.
Without this, there could be no true cuisine.
One had to first develop the ability to discern ingredients.
Even burls ranged from the finest to the basest.
In other words, just as there was a distinction between rayon and real silk, even among natural things there existed those as trivial as rayon.

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Just as all things require solid foundational construction, so too does cuisine demand fundamental training first and foremost.
Even among pigs, there are various kinds.
One must specify pigs by the kan (approximately 3.75 kilograms) and sea bream by the hundred momme (approximately 375 grams).
Even chickens—old ones are unpalatable.
Those before laying eggs are delicious.
Thus, even among chickens, there are countless variations.

Moreover, in cuisine, adjustment is crucial.
Even with the same ingredients, depending on how they are adjusted, they can turn out delicious or unpalatable.
To know proper adjustment—even in cuisine—this requires study; one must not act like blind men groping an elephant.

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From the perspective of making cuisine delicious, even the same dish should be placed in fine tableware.
It is desirable to eat in a place with a good view.
Even if unattainable, one must strive to approximate such conditions as much as possible.
Even in an apartment, arrange the room with good taste and dine.
Such an attitude is the secret to making cuisine delicious.
It’s not merely about eating; one must also attend to the aesthetic atmosphere.
This, ultimately, is what makes cuisine delicious.

Whether it be painting or calligraphy, nothing surpasses works of refined taste.
This too serves as nourishment for the mind—an indispensable fertilizer in cultivating humans.

When people speak of cuisine, they often focus narrowly on food alone, but since these arts beyond mere sustenance constitute essential nourishment for humanity, it is vital to devote meticulous care to them.
In fact, when it comes to meals, this approach appears to exert a beneficial effect on the body as well.

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Reporters from women’s magazines came to my place, asking me to talk about cuisine for their magazine’s articles.
But even when they came all that way, since they weren’t genuinely trying to understand, there was no point in my explaining.
In any case, I never bothered speaking to those who came merely on assignment to gather material—what could I possibly tell them?
The writers themselves didn’t even understand—how could they expect readers to grasp articles about “deliciousness”? That’s what I always told them.

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As for Ryokan’s rejection of restaurant cuisine or the poetic intent behind calligraphers’ verses, I raise both hands in agreement—yet the public shows not a shred of self-reflection.
One could only conclude that most people do not engage in serious contemplation.

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There lies a reason for this.
Cuisine inherently contains contradictions.

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Poor people make poor people’s preferred dishes.
This is a good match, and there are no complaints.

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When poor people take on preparing meals intended for the wealthy, it doesn’t harmonize well.

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The cuisine of those between the poor and the wealthy will inevitably first be made by the hands of the poor—a circumstance they might endure, but even if intolerable, there remains no alternative.

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The wealthy had no choice but to eat cuisine prepared by poor people's hands.
This was because noblewomen maintained no custom of working actively in kitchens.
Like Marquis Inoue—a Meiji statesman—or Eisenhower would personally prepare or at least oversee every detail of banquets served to guests, down to menu planning.
Had there been many such people worldwide, aristocrats might have dined among aristocrats and the wealthy among themselves—yet no nation achieved this arrangement.
Under these circumstances, poor people preparing dishes preferred by poor people appeared to bring the greatest happiness.

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Vegetables must be fresh.
Do not buy the withered vegetables piled up at greengrocers; if there is a farmhouse nearby, make the effort to go and purchase them yourself.
In fact, it may even cost less.
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There were people who left spinach soaking in a kitchen bucket for two whole days.
Spinach was not kitchen ikebana.

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Use the whetstone when sharpening a kitchen knife’s blade.
If you neglect post-use care even slightly，the kitchen knife will quickly don ‘rust’s clothes’.
Since you peel onions by removing their ‘clothes’，do not use a kitchen knife still wearing its ‘clothes’.

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When grilling fish...

Fish are fascinating creatures.
If you keep staring at them without looking away, they take forever to cook.
Yet if you glance aside even momentarily, they rush to char.

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When people are being watched, they hurry to do their tasks, but once the eyes are off them, they promptly grow idle.

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There exists a type of people who simply cannot cook delicious cuisine.
I know that type.
They are called by the name of lazybones.

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Even among rice cakes, there exist those that cannot be eaten.
Jealousy-mochi, pratfall-mochi, lantern-bearing-mochi, birdlime-mochi.

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There are things that cannot be eaten no matter how you boil or grill them.
There are even people who, by boiling or grilling precious ingredients, end up rendering them inedible.
There are even cases where a natural beauty ends up turning into a monster because of makeup.

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I occasionally listen to cooking lectures on the radio.
Surely this isn't instruction for preparing swill meant for pigs and dogs?
Because they distribute feed fit for livestock, the radio apparently must now broadcast recipes suitable for troughs.
This is nothing but endurance rations.
And soon enough, after their eugenics seminars conclude, they'll likely begin recruiting stud candidates.

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When you are served a meal as a guest, you should gladly partake of it without delay.
While you demur out of politeness, both the host’s goodwill and the food will grow cold, forcing you to eat what has turned unpalatable.
Moreover, it’s precisely those who feign reserve who usually end up devouring the most.

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Those who claim not to hunger even when their stomachs are empty need not be fed.
Even those who are full yet still crave to eat need not be fed.

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There were people who ate simply because it was mealtime.
A meal would not taste delicious unless one ate not because it was mealtime but because one was hungry.
What one did not perceive as delicious could not serve as nourishment.
Delicious things were always nutritious.

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Don’t worry—as long as you have a tongue, you won’t starve.

But beware of women and the stomach.

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You cannot fight on an empty stomach.
Is it a tragedy that in a Japan which has ceased to wage war, only hunger remains?
Then, is the life of the rich—who find nothing delicious no matter what they eat—a comedy?
Tragedy seeks hope; comedy has forgotten it.

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One added to one makes two.
As for *banzai*, one plus one makes three.
*Banzai* is spoken by two.
If you think that two people speaking together have twice the volume of one person speaking alone, it is not so—the effect is far greater than that.

Consider salt akin to *banzai*.
Take ten times the salt you put in one *gou* of broth, add it to one *shō* of broth, and boil it.
It is not only humans who grow stronger when gathered in numbers.

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When teaching cooking, if you’re going to specify exact measurements like *X* grams of salt or *Y* *monme* of sugar, then don’t use vague instructions like “chop the green onions appropriately” or “add a pinch of salt and pepper.”
There are people who consider cooking methods that measure out exact grams of this and that to be the lifestyle of scientific cultured individuals.
A scientific cultured individual is none other than a free person who has acquired a scientific approach to life—not one preoccupied with measuring salt in grams.

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With barbarians, even if you make them swallow toothpaste, stomach ailments will be cured.

When making rice curry, is there not someone who mistakenly adds wheat flour and baking soda?
Moreover, there are indeed those who eat it without even noticing…
However, make such dishes only when treating a stomach ailment.

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When cooking, women should especially cover their heads with a hand towel and prepare the meal. Dandruff and hair cannot substitute for Ajinomoto.

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Regard the indulgence of eating delicious things as an investment in health.

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Japanese cuisine was served in Japan’s beautiful vessels—a practice perfected through the tea ceremony.
However, today’s Japanese cuisine had become something far more abundant.
Moreover, it was also being examined from scientific perspectives.
Our taste preferences had also undergone changes.
Even when it came to ingredients used in cooking, there had been considerable changes over time.
The decline of today’s cuisine was considered to stem from its monopolization by commercialism.
Home cooking would perish.
The demise of home cooking meant nothing less than an increase in people who were unhealthy in both body and mind.

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When speaking of what matters most in cuisine, it was discerning the quality of ingredients.
When one used exceptionally fine ingredients—be it fish or vegetables—the act of cooking naturally became an effortless matter.
As long as one didn’t do anything utterly senseless, it was only natural that delicious dishes could be prepared.

For example, suppose there were fresh fish from the Seto Inland Sea—even if they unfortunately ended up in the hands of an inept cook, because the base ingredient was of good quality, one could still manage to eat them deliciously somehow.
Even with vegetables, if one cooked fresh ones like those from Kyoto, it was certain to be delicious without exception.
If that ingredient was out of place and moreover aged—if we speak in terms of fish, something faded in color and reeking—then no matter how skilled the cook might be, it simply would not become delicious.
Even with vegetables, if they were wilted and lacked vitality, they would have neither taste nor aroma, becoming nothing but dull food.
When one came to understand things in this way, it became necessary to first and foremost focus on ingredients.
While focusing on the quality of ingredients, one had to also master the ability to accurately discern them.

If one had not gained sufficient experience, one would be unable to discern the quality of ingredients before their very eyes; thus, one had to repeatedly endure the hardships of shopping—what might be called the study of shopping.
For example, just as women labored over selecting kimono fabrics.
If one looked but did not see, ate but did not discern the flavor, then one had neither the qualification to prepare cuisine nor the right to partake in it.
The quality of ingredients was equivalent to human wisdom and folly, virtue and vice; spoiled fish or out-of-season fish that had lost their richness could be likened to souls gone rotten or compared to the dim-witted and delinquent—and just as even the most dedicated educator’s efforts yielded uncertain results, so too would such ingredients fail.

Particularly with food ingredients—be it a single piece of fish or a whole daikon—there are often significant differences in quality even at the same price; therefore, it becomes crucial to first visually inspect and confirm their quality before making a purchase, establishing this as a habitual practice.
If a man becomes as meticulous in scrutinizing things as a sake connoisseur who nitpicks over liquor quality, he will attain the capacity to properly evaluate culinary excellence.
What must be fundamentally understood is this: inexpensive items generally prove inferior, while costly ones typically demonstrate superior quality.
This principle governs all matters.
Yet exceptions exist—those rare discoveries defying this rule.
Such goes without saying.

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Most people commonly think that dishes made by businesspeople are delicious—this is a misconception.
Indeed, businesspeople are experts in cuisine.
However, professionals cook under various constraints.
First and foremost comes price consideration when preparing dishes.
Though unorthodox, profitability takes primacy in commerce; cooking becomes secondary.
Herein lies culinary decay.
Yet this remains unavoidable.
Therefore, we err in assuming dishes purchased from professionals must taste good simply because they cost money.
Thus has this practice driven even home cooking to extinction.

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Home cooking, substantive cooking, unified cooking—there was no ulterior motive involved in them.
Cuisine as it truly was.
Though it was amateur cooking, if one considered that a family’s harmony and togetherness were invested in it, then it became heartfelt cuisine made with utmost care.
Whether it was miso soup or pickles, everything was delicious.
Today’s cult of convenience and slothful mindset drove this into commercial cuisine, and home cooking fell into ruin.