(株）PASSERELLE

” The “Food Question” is said to be the most important one for all travellers, and it is discussed continually with startling earnestness, not alone as regards my tour. […]  The fact is that, except at a few hotels in popular resorts which are got up for foreigners, bread, butter, milk, meat, poultry, coffee, wine, and beer, are unattainable, that fresh fish is rare, and that unless one can live on rice, tea, and eggs, with the addition now and then of some tasteless fresh vegetables, food must be taken, as the fishy and vegetable abominations known as “Japanese food” can only be swallowed and digested by a few, and that after long practice.”
On 7. June 1878, Isabella Bird (1831~1904), British explorer, is writing from “Yedo” to her sister while she is preparing her expedition deep into Japan. She in effect was one of the very first tourists … Her letters will be published as Unbeaten Tracks in Japan a few years later.
Past travel reports are highly enjoyable, they help to understand what has changed and why, in the landscape, as well as within us, the prism we look through. “Japanese Food” may have changed a little since 1878, but travelers not so much, when I think of the experience of a Japanese breakfast at a traditional ryokan. When I take people on the road with me, I am reminded that I am only part of “the few able to swallow after long practice” 🙂
(extract and drawing from the Project Gutemberg ebook, thank you for this great resource)