本帖最后由 choi 于 8-23-2017 12:50 编辑
(e) "Sugar arrived in Japan from China in the eighth century, and for nearly a millennium it was treated like a controlled substance * * * In the ninth century, the Emperor Ninmyō 仁明天皇 [808-850] is said to have offered rice cakes to the gods to celebrate finding a white tortoise, which was a sign of good luck. This ceremonial offering eventually evolved into an Edo-era ritual during which the shogun bestowed confections on his daimyo 大名 (feudal lords) as they swore fealty. The young aristocrats in 'The Tale of Genji 源氏物語' [1008 AD] savored tsubaki mochi [tsubaki mochi 椿餅 (check the Web to see what it looks like); tsubaki is defined in (b)], rice cakes pressed between camellia leaves, as they gazed at blossoming cherry trees"
(i) How Sugar is Made - the History. Undated
www.sucrose.com/lhist.html
("It is thought that cane sugar was first used by man in Polynesia from where it spread to India. In 510 BC the Emperor Darius of what was then Persia invaded India where he found 'the reed which gives honey without bees.' * * * When they [Arabs] invaded Persia in 642 AD [note: Muhammad (c 570 – 632) ] they found sugar cane being grown and learnt how sugar was made. As their expansion continued they established sugar production in other lands that they conquered including North Africa and Spain. Sugar was only discovered by western Europeans as a result of the Crusades in the 11th Century AD")
(A) It can not be "Polynesians," because aborigines from Taiwan populated Polynesia a thousand years ago.
(B) This post does not mention China.
(ii) history of sugar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar
(People of people of New Guinea domesticated sugarcane, 8,000 BC. Indians crystallized sugar. 唐太宗 wanted Indians to teach Chinese how to)
(f) "And though wagashi are sweet, sometimes intensely so, sweetness is not their endgame. It's worth noting that the Japanese word for sweet, amai, suggests naïveté when applied to a person, whereas shibui 渋い [there is no good English definition for this kanji, because Westerners do not have this concept that Chinese have], bitter, confers old-school cool. When eaten as part of the tea ceremony, the sugar in wagashi both tempers and is subsumed by the bitterness of the tea. The Tokyo confectioner Chikara MIZUKAMI 水上 力 [1948- ], whose four decades of devotion to his craft are the subject of the book 'Ikkoan 一幸庵' (named after his shop), has compared this sacrifice of sweetness to a samurai laying down his life for a lord. The Japanese god of confectioners is in fact Tajimamori 多遅麻毛理 [legendary, did not exist], a first-century vassal [not a warrior] who, according to legend, was sent in search of a mystical fruit to revive the ailing emperor. He returned with heavily laden branches, but too late, and wept at the emperor's grave until he too died, of grief. The last character in the fruit's name 非時香菓 is now part of the word wagashi."
(i) The "amai" is defined in (b).
(ii) the book (in Japanese):
水上 力, Ikkoan 一幸庵; ７２の季節のかたち. 青幻舎, 2016 (かたち’s kanji is 形).
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发表于 8-23-2017 12:47:20
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