 We Japanese say "Itadakimasu" when we start a meal and end the
meal with the word "Gotisosamadesita". According to Shojin-ryori,
the starting point of Japanese food culture, the purpose of a meal is to
exchange heart between the host and guest. As for Zen, cooking is considered
to be the training of Buddhism and a trainee monk is thought to be able
to accumulate good deeds by cooking meals with his whole heart without
saving time-consuming job. To dispose of cooking materials is equivalent
to the taking of life. It is necessary to respect the life of the materials
by getting all the use out of any kind of materials. So, the secret of
Shojin-ryori is to respect original taste of the materials and entertain
guests by making the best use of the rich taste of the materials.On the other hand, a guest is required to show gratitude for the cooking materials and the people who have made the effort to prepare and serve him the meal. He is also required to search his conscience if he deserves eating the meal by realizing that he can survive with the meal. The beginning words "Itadakimasu" and "Goat's-" imply such feelings of gratitude. When I was a child, I was also disciplined by my parents at the meal, "not to leave anything". Though I am neither a pious Buddhist, nor a person who has stoic sensibility as mentioned above, the reason why I feel guilty to leave foods must be due to this long time habit. When I lived in the USA, I felt a sense of incompatibility when I saw a great voluminous of meal served at a restaurant and the massive amount of garbages disposed outside of the restaurant. It might be my Japanese values, which have been planted since I was born. In the meantime, recently, I often see scenes, which profane Japanese food culture on TV programs. For example, the established custom of the beer shower scene at the victory party of the annual championship of professional baseball, the fasting eating contest and the gluttony contest and eating of strange creatures as a penalty in some games are the worst examples, but also the tendency to praise meals with valuable and scarce materials, and to call luxury for the cooking style of using small part of material and discard rest of it is a bad influence of audience rating supreme principal of the broad casting companies. Food culture is a primary factor to determines national character. It is not avoidable to change Japanese mentality due to the change of time and life style, but it is sad when we lose good side of Japanese mentality by loosing Japanese food culture. End |
