AT A JAPANESE DINNER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2425, 5 September 1900, Page 64

AT A JAPANESE DINNER.

To a European given to joints and corpulency a Japanese dinner is' a tedious experience. But a real JapSifse dinner, including chopsticks, lacquer trays, and tiny cupa, is a thing never to be forgotten :. The gue.sts remove their shoes on entering the house, and except when provided with a pair of cotton overshoes, must spend the evening ir stockinged feet, unless happily the host has an extra pair. The wife of a Japanese gentleman does not preside at his table unless there are ladies in the partj, but appears with the tea and sweetmeats which always precede a dinner. She merely greets the guests and appears again only when the good-byes are said. Silken cushions are scattered about the floor, and the guests are arranged according to rank, for the Japanese are, of course, great sticklers for form and ceremony. Little tables some six inches high are placed before each one, and barefooted waiting maids in graceful and prettily-tinted kimonos bring in lacquer trays with several tiny covered bowls. Before leaving the trays on the tables they set them on the floor, and, dropping on their knees, make theii best bow, touching their foreheads to the floor.

The host sets an example by removing the covers from the tiny bowls, and the guest, doing likewise, finds an assortment of food quite new and generally most distastful. Mustering up much skill ,one attempts getting the food on chopsticks from the tables to one's mouth. The first few times most of it falls on the floor or in one's lap. The wretched sticks wabble and cross eacii other as if focussed.* When almost desperate the good host is apt to come to the rescue by suggesting lifting the bowls and with the aid of a chopstick shovelling the food in, as one 'would potatoes into a barrel.

In each course there are half a dozen dishes, and the host tells what they are. First, a bean soup ; chestnuts boiled and crushed ; fish, picked fine and rolled into little balls and baked ; raw fish, cut into thin, slices and covered with ice. This is dipped into rich sauce='called soy. and is really very good. Little cups 'of warm sake, the native brandy made of rice, are seived with each course. Napkins and bread are unknown quantities. The second course is a small fish boiled whole, bits of fowl boiled with potatoes or lotus roots ; a salad of onions, peas, and beans, with a few leaves of lettuce ; sea snails served with eggplant mashed ; and a thick soup made of fish and vegetables, with mushrooms for a relish.

The third course is a curry of rice and picked vegetables ; and for c fourth and final course you have a sort of vermicelli served with soy and a sweet liqueur called mi rin ; shiruko, rice cakes, seaweed, and confectionery of all sorts, which are very sweet and ta&teless.

During the dinner each guest rises and proposes the health of the host and one other guest until the whole party is dispo?ed of. This custom is rather hard on the guests, for sake is fiery stuff, and goes to one's head more quickly than our gtui brandy. To make matters worse, after cue has drunk the health of all the company, it is customary to drink the health of ths waitresses, who bow their foreheads to the floor in acknowledgment. When oil i ovei one feels very hungry, stiff in the joints, and, if the dinner has been a large one, very much in need of a brandy and soda.