Foods of the Hokkaido Ainu
Ainu food, though not in every case that which Europeans prefer, does not, when properly cooked, come amiss at a pinch. For example, fresh salmon, codfish, venison, bear’s flesh, beans,…
From: Unknown To: 1901 C.E.
Location: Hokkaido, Japan
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From The Ainu and Their Folk-Lore by John Batchelor, 1901.
Cooking Pot made of Cherry-tree Bark. Image from text, by John Batchelor.
Ainu food, though not in every case that which Europeans prefer, does not, when properly cooked, come amiss at a pinch. For example, fresh salmon, codfish, venison, bear’s flesh, beans, millet, potatoes, and peas, are all good in themselves when cooked in the right way. But the Ainu do not know how to cook. They are remarkably fond of stew, strongly flavoured with badly-dried fish, and almost every article of food is cast into the stewpot, and is there, according to our taste at least, completely spoiled.
However, their food is not always cooked in this manner, for fish is sometimes roasted before the fire, and potatoes are baked in the ashes upon the hearth. A hungry man can make a good and enjoyable meal off such things. They are very fond of salmon, salmon trout, young sharks, swordfish, and whale; and, in the way of flesh, bear’s fat and marrow-bones, the haunch of venison, and any part of a horse or bullock, entrails included. Seaweed and various herbs, the roots of some kinds of lilies, and many water plants, as well as leeks and onions, are used as vegetables; while grouse, wild geese, and ducks, serve for game.
The fact was mentioned in a previous chapter that the roots of the dog-tooth violet (Erythronium dens canis) are dug up and made into cakes and used for food. The same remarks apply also to the arrowroot (Lilium Glehni, Fr. Schm.) which they call turep, for the people extensively use the bulbs of this plant as an article of diet.
They prepare them as follows. After having well washed the bulbs, they pound them in their raw state in a mortar. The flour or finer portion, which is called irup, is then separated from the coarser, and put in the sun to dry. When eaten this is generally made into a gruel and cooked with millet or rice.
The coarser part, which is often called shirari, is boiled at once, and then again pounded and put into a tub to decompose. When thoroughly rotten it is again boiled and pounded. After this it is made into large cakes, called onturep or turep-akam, with a hole in the centre, and hung up to dry. When needed for food, the Ainu throw them into the millet pot and boil them. The flour is, it may be remarked, sometimes applied to burns as a remedy.
The stem and leaves of the mugwort (Artemisia vulgari, L.) called noya by the Ainu, are also used for food, when very young, in the early spring. They are taken and first boiled; next they are well pounded in a wooden mortar, and lastly made into cakes and dried for future consumption.
A good deal, however, is eaten at once, having been first pounded with millet or rice. This is said to be a very nutritious food, and of itself quite sufficient to sustain life and keep the body in a healthy condition. It is said to be of a very sweet flavour, and the people are remarkably fond of it. The ancient Ainu used to live upon this herb a great deal, we are told, and it has been the means of keeping them alive throughout more than one famine. Later on in the year, when the plant becomes older, the leaves only are taken (without the stem) and dried for future use.
Chestnuts also form an important article of food among the Ainu. They prepare them in various ways. The favourite of which is to well boil them, then take off the skins and pound them into a paste; they are then reboiled with millet or rice and eaten.
It is considered to be a great delicacy to mix the pounded chestnuts with the eggs of salmon or trout and boil them together. Another way is to mash them with the fat of animals. Sometimes they are eaten roasted, but in that case never by way of taking a meal. This latter way of cooking chestnuts is looked upon as more of an agreeable pastime than anything else.
When taking a meal, the mistress of the house, together with her husband and youngest children, sit on the side of the fireplace that is on the left hand on looking into a hut from the west-end door.
The rest of the family occupy the right-hand side, strangers the lower end, near the door, and honoured guests the east or sacred end of the hearth.
There is no dishing-up to be done. The mistress ladles the food out of the stewpot as it hangs over the fire, and passes it to the one for whom it is intended. One advantage of this is, a person gets his dinner really hot, and meat and pudding covers are not required. Visitors are generally served first, then the husband, and lastly the remaining members of the family.
The Ainu have a very limited supply of eating utensils. If the cups are; not sufficient to go round the whole number taking food, two or more have to use the same cup. But this is not often the case, for each member of a family has generally his own cup or shell safely stowed away near his sleeping place, ever ready to be produced when required.
When a person wishes for more food, it is the correct thing to ask the mistress to replenish his cup. If she is too much engaged, or at all inclined to be familiar, as she is, for instance, among her own friends and relatives, she simply removes the pot-lid and points to the ladle, thereby indicating that the person may help himself.
John Batchelor, The Ainu and Their Folk-Lore (London: Religious Tract Society, 1901), 198-201.
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