Ep.17 A Table! ~Make and eat Historical Recipes~ pt.1
In this episode, we are going to talk about a Food TV dorama, called A Table! ~Make and eat Historical Recipes~ (À Table!〜歴史のレシピを作ってたべる〜) which is still airing on BS Shochiku Tokyu. Monday night, 10:30 pm. Since this show is still going, today will be part one!
Listen to full episode :
Summary
A Table! ~Make and eat Historical Recipes~ (À Table!〜歴史のレシピを作ってたべる〜) aired on BS Shochiku Tokyu from January 9th 2023, staring Mikako Ichikawa and Ayumu Nakajima.
This dorama is based on a recipe book, Remeshi! Enjoy the Wonderful Historical Food (歴メシ!決定版 歴史料理をおいしく食べる), written by Masashi Edo, a Historical Cuisine Reacher and Muscian. Since 2013, Edo has been published six books in total on the topic of historical cuisine. And this is the first time his work was adopted into a real person TV dorama.
In the TV Show, Jun and Yoshio, a couple married for 15 years, living in the husband’s relative’s house, which is a 20 minutes walk from Kichijoji Station in Tokyo. Which are not the characters in the receipt book.
Jun, with a dream of being an essay writer, born in Hokkaido, is working as an academic staff member at a university. Based on my observation, I think she might work for the Department of Western History.
Yoshio, the husband, is a manager of the Department of Management at a pickle maker company, and their Nagao office. Yoshio used to work at Nagano, and only came home to Tokyo once as well. Then, because of the COVID, he transferred to work from home. Even though he works remotely, sometimes he still needs to drive to Nagano for some meetings and projects, so most of the time, Jun has a house of her own.
Jun has a hard time seeing Yoshio more frequently than before. So the historical recipes that are provided by a professor she works with really provide some activities for this couple to explore and work together, and also lead some discussion and conversation at the dinner table.
A Table is not a cooking show neither a history lesson. Everything just happens between Jun and Yoshio’s team work and dinner table conversations. It is a story of a couple who thinks about "how much effort has humankind made to eat deliciously", "how did ingredients spread to the world", and feel "history" and "time".
Historical food is not just in the history book, they are vivid, alive on the table. What a great idea or topic to be represented as a TV Show!
About the Food
In the TV Show, Professor Asuka Hamaguchi of the Department of Western History Faculty of Letters, who Jun works with, is the researcher who provides all the recipes to Jun.
In Professor Hamaguchi’s class, she uses food as a medium to discuss the cultural identity or social status, our rounded frame of mind and even our position in power as mortal beings that need sustenance to keep going.
From Marie Antoinette, Caesar, to Alexander III, from Victor Hugo, Leonardo da Vinci to Richard III.
As a result, food is also an integral player in literature's ability to impart the human condition. Professor Hamaguchi says in the show that, “History becomes more familiar when people in history actually ate it.”
Meanwhile, many of the receipts in the includes the dumplings, all different format of something rape in a dough tells many cultures are more similar than we thought.
For example, the relationship between Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, and potatoes and bread. How potatoes Traveled Around the World Why did it spread in France? Conquest, food shortages, marriage across borders. What is the reason why ingredients have spread all over the world? Marie Antoinette’s famous citation, “Let Them Eat Cake,” shows the bread also the food shortages had a strong tide of French political life.
In the episode of Victor Hugo, Jun’s friend comes to visit, who is working as a magazine editor, lives in a fancy life that Jun dreamed of having. They talk about the baguette and wine. The recipes of onion soup, baked apples and rice as dessert (what!?).
Do not forget the relationship between food and colonialism, for example, lamb cuisine is actually from Africa to France, with chocolate and coffee as well.
Prior to enduring Victor Hugo's writing career, the revolution of 1789 was in part fueled by a massive bread shortage throughout France. By the time of the events of Les Miserables, which spans the first half of the 19th century, a loaf became a symbol of economic status in a highly stratified society. And the various ways Hugo describes bread in the book are a reflection of that. For example, he writes that the rural poor eat bread so hard that they cut it up with an axe and soak it for 24 hours before they can eat it. During Hugo’s time, because of the revolution, the royal family fled all over the place. To make a living, the chefs of the palace took to the streets and opened restaurants. People who worked hard and with a bit of money, also began to eat food that was only served in the palace in the past, which also made France and Paris known for their food.
Ending
The university I am working at offers food studies which can be integrated into many other topics and majors but at another campus. I have been thinking about taking the courses but the commute and working time always conflict.
One day, it will be so nice to study more about food and history, and even the literature, because I have been surrounding by them the most of the time 🙂
