ABSTRACT

Europeans at the time ate mostly with their hands; a knife might be used to cut meat and spoons were used to eat gruel, soups, stews, and pudding. The Jesuits and most other Europeans were dumbfounded by the skill with which the Japanese ate with chopsticks. Japanese tables were generally four to eight inches from the floor or tatami. Japanese reliance on chopsticks and consumption of bite-sized edibles made napkins unnecessary. The Japanese do not pay much attention to eating and drinking noises. The idea of propriety through stiffness is still understood in Japan, as is two-handed drinking, although today both are rare. The Japanese seldom drink plain water; tea is arguably their main source of water. Still, rice was not the sacred=imperial=japanese object, that it became later, when neo-Shinto nationalists argued that the only rice in the world worthy of the name was Japanese rice, which was derived from the body of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu-omikami.