Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/91

barley or millet as the ordinary food. Various vegetables, particularly beans, are much used, fresh or pickled; seaweed, fish, eggs, and nuts are largely eaten; and a sauce, made of beans and wheat, and sold in America as "soy," is "the universal condiment." Thin vegetable soups are an important part of their meals, and, as no spoons are used, are drunk with a loud sucking noise, which is a fixed habit in drinking. The principal beverages, even more common than water, are tea and sake. The latter, an alcoholic liquor brewed from rice, is taken hot; the former, without milk or sugar, is also taken hot, and is served, not only at meals, but just about all the time. A kettle of hot water is always kept ready at hand, in house or inn, so that tea may be steeped in a moment and procured to drink at any time. It is always set before a guest as soon as he arrives, and is absolutely indispensable in every household.

At meal time each person sits on the floor before a small, low table on which his food is placed. They use no knife, fork, or spoon, only chop-sticks; and do not consider it in bad form to eat and drink with loud smacking and sucking sounds. Their food, when served, seems to foreigners more beautiful than palatable; it is "unsatisfying and mawkish." One who has probably had innumerable experiences during a long residence in Japan says: "After a Japanese dinner you have simultaneously a feeling of fulness and a feeling of having eaten nothing that will do