I do love the
occasional time-travel trip to a far-away location, and hope you do to. Yesterday
we were in the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal in the 1870’s. Today we are
going to Japan in the year 1904, and our venue is a military hospital.
In November 1904, the Russo-Japanese
War was in its ninth month. The Times
of London of that month reported on the facilities in a private hospital which
had been converted to military use. Luckily for us, the correspondent included
in his report some comments on the food served to officer patients.
The Red Cross
Hospital At Tokio.
It
is only since the eyes of the world have been turned to the Far East under the
stress of war that people have realized how Japan is in a position to teach
other nations as well as to learn from them. This is especially the case in
regard to the Japanese Red Cross Society, which is near perfect in its organization,
each detail having been carefully considered. Now that its resources are being
tried to the utmost, in this terrible press of work, there is no confusion, no
lack of helpers, and no leakage in transmission of necessaries for the army.
The
Red Cross Hospital at Shibuya in Tokio is in time of peace a training school
for nurses ….
At
the beginning of the war the whole system was gradually changed, and the wards
formerly occupied by paying patients are now reserved for officers, ….
The
officers’ meals are served in wooden cases, containing numerous little dishes,
which are eaten with chopsticks. They are as follows:-
Breakfast,
6 a.m. Bean soup, fried fish, eggs dressed in various ways, rice (which takes
the place of bread), and Japanese tea. (This tea is specially prepared and only
allowed to stand one minute before it is poured off. No milk is taken with it,
and it is constantly drunk during the day.)
Tiffin,
11.30. – Fish soup, slices of raw fish, a little meat or cooked fish, stewed
vegetables (such as lotus root, lily root, egg plant, ginger seaweed, &c.,)
pickles, sweetmeats, cakes, rice, and sometimes a little wine.
Dinner,
5 p.m. – Much the same as tiffin.
Later
in the evening, milk, biscuits, and light refreshments as required.
There
is only a slight difference between officers and privates as regards meals,
except in the way of serving, and all wear unbleached calico kimonos, officers
having the distinguishing mark of two black stripes on the left arm under the
Red Cross. Their intense patriotism and disregard of life at the call of duty
is remarkable …
As the recipe for the day, I give you a couple of
recipes for Japanese sweetmeats, from the Chinese-Japanese
Cook Book, by Sara Bosse And Onoto Watanna [pseud.] (Chicago, c1914)
Owa Okashi.
A
favorite Japanese candy. It is made of sweet rice, roasted over an
open fire, same as popcorn, mixed with goma seeds, and held together
in pressed bars with barley sugar. It is an improvement over the
American popcorn-peanut balls.
Yohan Candy.
Boil adzuki
(purple beans) to a paste, and mix with sugar and seaweed
gelatine. Allow it to harden.
How interesting that lunch is called tiffin.
ReplyDelete