Overview of Traditional Japanese Cuisine
Japanese cuisine is based on combining the staple food which is steamed white rice or gohan (御飯?) with one or several okazu or main dishes and side dishes. This may be accompanied by a clear or miso soup and some tsukemono (pickles).
The phrase ichijū-sansai (一汁三菜, "one soup, three sides"?) refers to the makeup of a typical meal served, but has roots in classic kaiseki and honzen cuisine. The term is also used to describe the first course served in standard kaiseki cuisine nowadays.
Rice is served in its own small bowl (chawan), and course item is placed on its own small plate (sara) or bowl (hachi) for each individual portion. This is done even at home. It contrasts with the Western-style dinners at home, where each individual takes helpings from the large tureens and plates of food presented at the middle of the dining table. Japanese style traditionally abhors different flavored dishes touching each other on a single plate, so different dishes are given their own individual plates as mentioned, or are partitioned using leaves, etc. This is why in take-out sushi the tamagoyaki egg vs. fish, or Blue-backed fish vs. white-fleshed fish are carefully separated. Placing okazu on top of rice and "soiling" it is also frowned upon by old-fashioned etiquette.
The small rice bowl or chawan (lit. "tea bowl"), which doubles as a word for the large tea bowls in tea ceremonies. Thus in common colloquy the drinking cup is referred to as yunomi-jawan or yunomi for the purpose of distinction.
In the olden days, among the nobility, each course of a full-course Japanese meal would be brought on serving trays called zen (膳?), which were originally platformed trays or small dining tables. In the modern age, faldstool trays or stackup type legged trays may still be seen used in zashiki, i.e. tatami-mat rooms, for large banquets or at a ryokan type inn. Some restaurants might use the suffix -zen (膳) as a classier though dated synonym to the more familiar teishoku (定食?), since the latter basically is a term for a combo meal served at a taishū-shokudō, akin to a diner. Teishoku means a meal of fixed menu, a dinner à prix fixe served at shokudō (食堂, "dining hall"?) or ryōriten (料理店, "restaurant"?), which is somewhat vague (shokudō can mean a diner type restaurant or a corporate lunch hall); but e.g. Ishikawa, Hiroyoshi (石川弘義) (1991) (snippet). Taishū bunka jiten. Kōbundō. p. 516. http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=6mYxAQAAIAAJ. defines it as fare served at teishoku-shokudō (定食食堂, "teishoku dining hall"?), etc., a diner-like establishment.
Emphasis is placed on seasonality of food or shun (旬?), and dishes are designed to herald the arrival of the four seasons or calendar months.
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