Style of IKIJI Part12

“SHOKI-BARAI” Beating the summer heat

In the hot and hot summer, there was a “Shoki-barai” that gave foods and drinks for cooling down the body, and removed the heat accumulated in the body. In the Edo period when there was no refrigerator like the present day, it seems that people was drinking a medicinal bath called “Biwa-yo” in which loquat or peach leaves were roasted as “things that cool the body”. After that, it simply came to a nominal banquet or drinking party that exudes summer heat and stress.

Speaking of summer, it is common to eat Eel on the mid- summer day of the OX, but originally it was said that it would be auspicious to eat something with “U” on the day, and “Umeboshi”(salted plum) and “URI (Melon) ” , “ Unohana ”(camellia flower), etc., but it soon became a monopoly market of the Eel.. That’s because Dr. Gennai Hiraga (doctor and scholar in Edo period), who everyone knows, was asked for the wisdom of thriving business from a popular Eel restaurant, and he wrote it as “Today is the mid-summer day of the OX” so it was said that you could put it on the door and see it. It seems that people, who saw its writing, have become long queues.

“Sasagashi no Gobo no soba de minakoroshi” (“Killing by the shaving burdock”)

“Sasagashi” is Edo resentment of “Sasagaki” that chops vegetables like shaving a pencil, simmering live dojo (loach) right by the boiled bowl with shaved burdock, and it was called as killing. Edokko(Tokyoite) became sweaty in the hot season, and it seemed to be a stamina food to prevent hot summer illness, by squeezing “Dojo soup” seasoned with miso(Soy bean), shichimi pepper(red pepper) and sansho pepper.(Japanese pepper)

By the way, in Edo, it was not called as “Dojo” but “Dojau” instead, but when it became a pot, it was called as “Dozeu”. This is just like “cow ‘‘ if it is alive, but when it becomes food meat it is called “Beef ”, “Dojau ” is alive and “Dozeu ” is processed into food pointing. In other words, “Dojau soup” is a cooked live “dojo “and “Dozeu nabe” (loach pot) is using sliced open body that has been softly boiled down to the bones and boiled and teared to drop the head and remove the bones and internal organs. This summer is extremely hot. How about the “Dozeu Nabe” that Edo people liked by all means?