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Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was a Japanese artist who was proficient in printmaking and painting in Edo, Japan. Possibly learning from his father, Hokusai began doing art when he was 6 years old. Later on, he started focusing on depicting the daily life of Japanese people with different social levels and he also highlighted landscapes. One, in particular, is a landscape print series of the landscape Mount Fuji called 36 Views of Mount Fuji. That series includes one of his most famous pieces as well as one of my personal favorites: Great Wave of Kanagawa. He, later on, made another landscape series titled One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji. In his postscript to this series he wrote “From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. ” (Hokusai) However, in 1839 a fire destroyed a lot of his work but he continued to paint even though his career was considered to be waning at the time. He produced a lot of his important and most famous works after age 60. Along with many landscape scenes, Hokusai also showed social scenes, farming scenes, and street scenes. In the farming scenes, Hokusai depicts what was eaten and harvested during the time.
In The Harvesting of Mushrooms, Hokusai depicts what the title states, which is five people harvesting mushrooms (keep this in mind for our dishes). In other pieces such as The Rank and File Recharge Their Energy from Sketches by Hokusai Vol.9., Hokusai depicts a man cooking with ingredients such as fish and rice which are two prominent ingredients when making sushi. I am not sure what dish he is making in this piece. However, this piece shows common ingredients during that time as well as the preparation of their dishes. It sort of gives the audience a step-by-step process of cooking during this time. During his ukiyo-e work, a style of woodblock printmaking, he highlighted the culinary traditions specifically through the seasons. I chose a print that highlighted the landscape scenery as well as the eating traditions that Hokusai experienced during his time. The piece is titled The Amida Falls in the Far Reaches of the Kisokaidō Road (Kisoji no oku Amida-ga-taki) and is from his series: A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces. This series along with 36 Views of Mount Fuji is filled with “masterpieces that make his name immemorial, and in both series, the coloring and composition support each other.” (Kafū) This piece depicts a gorgeous and mesmerizing waterfall along with three men having what looks like a picnic. They are sitting on top of blankets on the ground, specifically a mountainous cliff. One has his back towards us and has a fire with food hanging above it. The other two are facing towards us with a box in front of them.
The box could be an incense game box which was a social activity people did during the Edo period. It could also be a wood picnic set. Those sets would include small saucers, pairs of bottles, and food trays. I am not completely sure what it is but there are different things it could be. I was inspired by this piece to make a traditional Edo meal and a well-known Japanese meal. However, both are pretty well-known currently. I made homemade chicken ramen and vegetable sushi. Sushi was a common meal during that period along with soba noodles which is a thin noodle made from buckwheat. Since I could not find any soba noodles at the store, I leaned towards ramen instead. Plus I already had some of the ingredients for the ramen dish. I have made both ramen and sushi before but never at the same time. It was an experience! It only took around 2 ½ hours to cook both together. The recipe for the ramen came from an amazing YouTuber I watch, Audrie Storme. The sushi recipe came from Food Network's well-known cook and Iron Chef: Masaharu Morimoto. Storme’s was a youtube video recipe linked below. Morimoto’s was a written recipe of Food Network’s website also linked below.
For the sushi, I used similar vegetables that he used such as cucumber, lettuce, tomato, and red onion. I am not a fan of avocado so instead of that, I used shiitake mushrooms that I actually cooked earlier for the ramen. I have a sushi roll kit so it was pretty easy to roll the sushi. This sushi was very easy to make because I didn’t have any fish to cut certain ways. Normally cutting fish takes up a good portion of my time when making sushi. Everything else was very simple. The only time-consuming part of the sushi was waiting for the rice to cook. However, the ramen was a lot more complicated. Storme’s ramen recipe is vegan but I added chicken to it. We had chicken defrosted so I sauteed it with basic seasonings of garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, salt, and pepper. Then I proceeded to follow Storme’s recipe with slight adjustments. I did not make the noodles homemade because I do not have a pasta roller. So, I bought some ramen noodles instead. I had only a white Hawaiian miso paste so I used that instead of a traditional miso paste. I overcooked my eggs by accident so they were not able to marinate the way they normally do. The egg is supposed to be a softer boiled egg while mine was very close to a hard-boiled egg. It still had a little bit of that flavor but not as much as it normally has when I make it. I heavily relied on shiitake mushrooms throughout the ramen dish. It helped flavored the broth and was used for a garnish on top of the ramen. I put it in the sushi because I had leftover mushrooms. Adding it to the sushi gave it even more flavor that I adored. Overall, both dishes were excellent. The sushi was so simple that I am saving it for the drafts. It’s something quick and easy especially if you have the rice already ready. The ramen takes time but it is most definitely worth it. The broth alone is fantastic and Storme’s presentation in her video makes this meal look so easy and peaceful. She mentions that it took her around 8 hours to film that video and I 100% recommend it! Hokusai’s piece depicted Edo culture during the time and these dishes allowed me to get a taste of what it was like as well as what it continued to be.
Recipes:
Masaharu Morimoto's Vegetable Sushi Recipe Ingredients:
3 cups short-grain Japanese rice, rinsed
1/3 cup rice vinegar
3 tablespoons sugar
Salt
For the rolls:
10 nori sheets (dried seaweed), halved
Sesame seeds, for sprinkling
1 cucumber
1 avocado
1 plum tomato, seeded
1 small red onion
20 asparagus spears, trimmed and blanched
Wasabi paste, for spreading and serving
1 romaine lettuce heart
Pickled ginger, for serving
Audrie Storme Vegan Ramen Recipe Ingredients:
Noodles:
½ cup of water
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 ½ cups of flour
Pinch of salt
Soft boiled egg marinade:
6 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp mirin
3 tbsp cooking sake
Ramen Broth:
6 cloves of garlic (medium to large size)
3 tbsp of sesame oil
3 tbsp of soy sauce
4 cups of water
¼ cup of miso paste
A little scoop of spicy miso paste
3 tbsp vegan butter(regular is fine)
Salt, white pepper, and garlic powder(to taste)
Toppings:
3 shiitake mushrooms
3 green onions
2 Marinated soft boiled eggs
Seaweed
Sources:
Author Unknown. “Biography of Katsushika Hokusai.” Katsushika Hokusai Biography | Life, Paintings, Influence on Art, www.katsushikahokusai.org/biography.html.
Hokusai, Katsushika. “The Harvesting of Mushrooms - Katsushika Hokusai.” Www.wikiart.org, www.wikiart.org/en/katsushika-hokusai/the-harvesting-of-mushrooms.
Kafū, Nagai, et al. “Ukiyo-e Landscapes and Edo Scenic Places (1914).” Review of Japanese Culture and Society, vol. 24, 2012, pp. 210–232. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42801051. Accessed 7 July 2021.
Tanaka, Yukari. “'Hokusai and the Gourmets of Great Edo'.” The Japan Times, 13 Nov. 2018, www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2018/11/13/arts/openings-in-tokyo/hokusai-gourmets-great-edo/.
“The Amida Falls in the Far Reaches of the Kisokaidō Road (Kisoji No Oku Amida-Ga-Taki), from the Series A Tour of Waterfalls in Various Provinces (Shokoku Taki Meguri).” Metmuseum.org, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/55022.
Victoria and Albert Museum, Digital Media webmaster@vam.ac.uk. Traditional Japanese Pastimes, Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2RL. Telephone +44 (0)20 7942 2000. Email Vanda@Vam.ac.uk, 20 Aug. 2013, www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/traditional-japanese-pastimes/.
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