Texts that discussed food and eating in Tokugawa Japan came in both informational and in literary forms. Many texts that would be considered informational gave advice primarily on what to eat and how to eat. Authors frequently related food to medicine, talking a lot about what to eat to be healthy in general, and also what to eat to cure ailments; Chinese medicine understandings on the relationship between food as medicine were commonly brought up. Another important type of circulating food text was cookbooks. Cookbooks could be considered either informational or literary to different people, and this depended on the social class of whoever was reading it. The circulation of certain food texts in Tokugawa Japan influenced a national understanding
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The books were also controlled by the fact that the recipes were extremely vague and unlike a typical cookbook recipe one would find today. For instance, a recipe for “Kōren” in The Southern Barbarian’s Cookbook published in the 17th century reads: “With white rice flour and rice flour dyed red, yellow, and blue, make four colors of flowers. Grill these separately. There are oral instructions.” The recipe provides little detail or explanation, and the allusion to “oral instructions” implies that one would have to have outside knowledge or instruction to even begin to make this dish, which peasants and readers-for-fun would obviously have no access to. In his book The Practices of Everyday Life, Michel De Certeau delves into the idea that, “there is a ‘diet hierarchy’ that overlaps a social hierarchy.” Cookbooks perfectly illustrate and reinforce this overlap, as one’s social standing would determine what one ate and what one knew how to eat, and would therefore become a visible diet hierarchy in Tokugawa
The books were also controlled by the fact that the recipes were extremely vague and unlike a typical cookbook recipe one would find today. For instance, a recipe for “Kōren” in The Southern Barbarian’s Cookbook published in the 17th century reads: “With white rice flour and rice flour dyed red, yellow, and blue, make four colors of flowers. Grill these separately. There are oral instructions.” The recipe provides little detail or explanation, and the allusion to “oral instructions” implies that one would have to have outside knowledge or instruction to even begin to make this dish, which peasants and readers-for-fun would obviously have no access to. In his book The Practices of Everyday Life, Michel De Certeau delves into the idea that, “there is a ‘diet hierarchy’ that overlaps a social hierarchy.” Cookbooks perfectly illustrate and reinforce this overlap, as one’s social standing would determine what one ate and what one knew how to eat, and would therefore become a visible diet hierarchy in Tokugawa