Sakura is the Japanese for cherry blossom, but if I offered you sakura nabe and you expected a big bowl of petals you might be a tad surprised to find chunks of horse meat in your bowl. In the world of nabe 鍋 - the Japanese hot pot - sakura is the term for horseflesh. Many people will attempt to explain that this is because horse meat is the same colour as cherry blossoms, or that horse is tastiest in cherry blossom season, but the reason for the horse-sakura connection is much simpler. It stems from the prohibition on the eating of meat, decreed and enforced to various degrees from the 6th century. As the Yamasa Institute explains:
During the 6th century, Buddhism became the official religion of the country and the eating of meat and fish were prohibited. The first recorded decree prohibiting the eating of cattle, horses, dogs, monkeys, and chickens was issued by Emperor Temmu in A.D. 675. Similar decrees, based on the Buddhist prohibition of killing, were issued repeatedly by emperors during the eighth and ninth centuries. The number of regulated meats increased to the point that all mammals were included except whales, which were categorized as fish.
Being a practical people, the country folk simply developed their own nomenclature to disguise their consumption of meat. (see JapaneseJapanese for a related discussion on eating rabbits). The classification of whale as fish is masterful - wild boars were called yamakujira ('mountain whales') 山鯨 which means you have:
wild boar-----> whale--------->fish
(If only the Japanese whaling industry had thought of this.....)
Just in case, boar meat was referred to as botan (peony) 牡丹 and venison became momiji (maple leaves) 紅葉
These days there is no need for such subterfuge and 牡丹鍋 is more likely to be called inoshishi nabe 猪鍋 - inoshishi means wild boar. Horse is still called sakura - I guess people still shy away from acknowledging that they may have once placed a bet on their dinner.
Tags learn Japanese nabe
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