A tour of Japan's Warring States Period

The snow in Shinano finally fell one after another. Although it was not heavy, it gave people hope after all.

Farmers who were originally busy with production and self-rescue can now go home to Maodong with peace of mind. Yamauchi Yoshiharu, who is worried about a total harvest failure in Shinano next year, also puts his worries into his stomach.

Fuchu City is once again filled with a cheerful New Year atmosphere. Although there are no firecrackers or whips, it is appropriate to cut down bamboo and pine branches to make kadomatsu and ask for royal coins for a safe New Year from the shrine.

On the street, several children from the samurai Ashigaru family were chasing each other and playing with each other in the light snow, holding cut bamboo branches. There was a burst of cheerful laughter, which was very festive.

Regardless of whether the townspeople or the samurai, they always give each other some New Year's food before the new year, which is usually not very expensive. Most of them are made and ready-to-eat.

Heiroku is the most attentive, and with a wife, his energy and energy are completely different. He also grew a beard and had his braids taken care of. In addition, he had never farmed when he was young and his skin was not that dark. Now that he was wearing a new suit of water-dry clothes, he looked like a warrior.

He took his wife and children to bring wagashi to Xiao Pingtai, which is actually rice flour dumplings wrapped with bean paste filling. But looking at Nanosuke's eager eyes, you know that this thing is not cheap, and not many people would make it as a snack.

Koheita opened the bamboo box and handed one to Nanosuke first. The child wanted to take it, but his mother coughed lightly. Nanosuke immediately retracted his hand and swallowed, "Tamasa-sama should eat first."

"Hahahahahaha, okay. They are all our own children, so there is no need to be so restrained." Koheita took a bite first, and then handed the remaining half to Nanosuke.

There is no such thing as disdain or disdain in this era. Not only is there no shame in eating leftover food from those in high positions, it is even a reward, a bit of honor.

Didn’t you see, in the tea ceremony, eighteen people drink a bowl of tea from one bowl, and the last person has to drink the saliva of the first seventeen people. It feels disgusting now, but it didn't exist then.

Afterwards, a few people chatted about their family affairs. Xiao Heita invited them to eat New Year soba together during the New Year, and sent Heiroku and his family away.

Then other families began to send some things one after another. Xiaoping didn't have a wife and couldn't cook, so he had to beg his aunt to make one for him.

It turned out that Xiaoping didn't need to mention it at all. His aunt had already prepared one for him, and it turned out to be made from konjac. This thing is also called konjac, commonly known as konjac. What everyone sees now are things with deep colors after adding natural seaweed. There were not so many artificial pigments in the Warring States Period, and they were just lighter colors like grayish brown.

Logically speaking, not many people grow this kind of thing, because the entire konjac plant is poisonous, and it will "burn your hands" even if you pick it with bare hands. In particular, its tubers contain a large amount of needle-shaped oxalic acid, which if eaten raw will not only cause severe pain, but also cause paralysis.

But peel this thing, mash it into a puree, add twice the volume of water, and use bitter juice to speed up the solidification. It becomes the konjac we know well. If it is pressed with a pressing mold before solidification, konjac silk can also be obtained. After seasoning, the taste is still good.

My aunt just made fried radish leaves with shredded konjac and sliced ​​konjac dipped in juice. He asked his family members and maids to deliver them to each house, and then specially made a high-quality noodle dish and sent it to the city for Yamauchi Yoshiharu.

If there are readers from the northwest, you should know about a specialty noodle made from flour - dried noodles. I have been on "A Bite of China", and the old couple in Wugong County, Shaanxi Province, make noodles by hand at home, not by pulling, but by hanging, to produce noodles as thin as hair.

The same goes for Japanese noodles. Use flour and sesame oil, and keep kneading the dough to prevent it from drying out. Then, like dried noodles, it is rolled into long strips and hung on two sticks, constantly opening the distance between the two sticks, and finally making high-quality noodles in a labor-intensive, oil- and time-consuming process.

In ancient Japan, poor people couldn't afford this stuff. So when you watch Japanese movies or animations, when you hear about the Ryushui Somen Conference, you get very happy. There is a deep-seated love for high-end food.

Little Pingta also wanted to eat chicken soup noodles, so he immediately asked Chen San to go to the streets to find if there was any local chicken or pheasant that he had hunted for sale. Noodles in chicken soup, delicious.

While she was still drooling and dreaming, Xiao Nai, who had grown into a grown-up girl, came back with a box. It turned out to be a New Year food gift from Harumiya Hosokawa's family, but someone else came back from the province along the way.

Xiao Pingtai opened the box, "I heard that it was made by Harugong-sama's daughter. It was specially given to Tan Zheng. It is very different from other families."

After Xiao Nai finished speaking, he stood up and returned to the kitchen. On the contrary, the aunt present here was laughing from ear to ear, and even said that this was a kind gesture from Miss A Ling.

Xiaoping didn't blush and pretended not to hear, and opened the two-layered food box.

The little girl's craftsmanship is really good, even her aunt was amazed at her work. The first box was honey-boiled black beans, which was very ordinary, but honey is not cheap. Xiaopingtai pinched one with his bare hands and it was delicious.

Then comes the tofu rolls [Note 1]. Use old tofu, crush it, add an appropriate amount of sugar, wine, egg yolk and other ingredients, steam it in a pot again, and finally roll it up with a special mold and slice it.

Next to it is a mixed vegetable, shredded radish mixed with vinegar sauce (not just vinegar), and there are some filaments of other colors, probably some other plants.

Then there is the cooking of wild vegetables such as Angelica sinensis and wild lilies. Angelica sinensis is not Angelica sinensis. There is a Japanese proverb that says, "Angelica sinensis is a big tree, but it is useful but not useful"! Angelica sinensis can grow to more than two meters tall, which is almost half a tree to the 1.4-meter-tall farmer who harvests it. Unfortunately, only the tubers are edible.

The lily is the tuber left in the soil to wither after the lily on the mountain blooms. We now sell fresh lilies in the market. In summer, don’t we often cook lily and mung bean soup to relieve the heat and quench our thirst? If you tear off the thin film on each lily, most of the bitter taste of the lily will be removed, and the taste will be much better.

The food box on the lower floor actually contained a large piece of roasted tapir venison that was cut into a bite-sized piece!

Xiaopingtai was about to shed tears for a moment. It’s Chinese New Year, and someone finally remembers me. It took a lot of effort to put together a plate of hard food. I had pickled radish and chazuke rice every day, and my life was miserable.

The aunt next to me spoke again, "Venison, it's not easy to get at this time of year. You are such a good son-in-law to Mr. Hosokawa, Mr. Heita!"

Just to have a meal of meat every day, I have to be this son-in-law!

[Note 1]: It only appeared in the Edo period. It is a type of Date roll. Its origin is unknown, but the name Date is very pointing. This person is really accomplished in food. I feel like he invented a lot of food. .