98 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



sticks, assisted by timely inhalation of the breath. The 

 cooking is done chiefly by boiling or steaming in covered 

 kettles of iron or copper. Baking and roasting are not 

 common operations in Japanese cooking, as bread and meat 

 are rarely eaten. The universal substitute for bread is 

 steamed rice, which is eaten without salt, sugar, milk, butter, 

 or oil. It constitutes by far the greater part of the daily 

 food of the agricultural population, and is both easy of 

 digestion and very nutritious. But every Japanese demands 

 with his rice at every meal a liberal supply of a stinking salt 

 pickle made of radishes. Beans and pease also constitute 

 an essential part of the food of vegetarians, and these are 

 eaten in a great variety of sorts and in numerous ways. 

 Soy, the common sauce for fish and vegetables, is produced 

 by the fermentation of beans and wheat, with the addition 

 (of salt and vinegar. The Japanese eat every thing edible 

 •(Which grows in the water, and are very fond of raw fish, and 

 ialso of seaweed, which is cooked in many ways. As they 

 do not use milk, they make cheese from the flour of beans 

 and pease ; and, as a substitute for butter and lard, they eat 

 the oil obtained from the seed of a sort of cabbage, which is 

 largely cultivated for this purpose. Nearly every vegetable, 

 grain, and fruit, cultivated in this country, is raised in Japan; 

 and several species are highly esteemed there which we dis- 

 card, such as burdock-roots, lily-bulbs, and the leaf-stalks of 

 a species of nardosmia. Perhaps the most extraordinary 

 thing in regard to the food of the Japanese is their prefer- 

 ence of green fruit to that which is ripe. Peaches are con- 

 sidered edible as soon as the stone is too hard to break with 

 the teeth; but before this they are considered unhealth}'. 

 Plums, apricots, peaches, and melons are preferred in an 

 unripe state. Apples and pears are also consumed when 

 very hard, and indigestible for any one but a rice-eater. 

 ' Oranges and lemons are very abundant and excellent. One 

 variety of orange is very delicious in flavor, quite free from 

 seeds, and with a skin so thin that it is readily removed 

 with the thumb-nail. You can buy twenty for a cent, and 

 eat them at one sitting. Grapes are scarce ; but kaki, a large 

 persimmon, is a common and favorite fruit, especially in the 

 South. 



The universal beverage of Japan is tea, which is drunk 



