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The story
A thread titled “I want to time-slip to the Edo period and eat and drink at a tavern” filled up with concrete details about food life in old Edo. Contributors noted that lighting a single andon lamp for five hours cost the equivalent of about 500 yen today, so commoners didn’t waste rapeseed oil; that soy sauce didn’t spread among ordinary people until the mid-Edo period; and that tuna spoiled fast and was often already going off by the time it reached Edo, making it cheap, near-worthless fish for a long stretch of history. The thread showed a clear temperature gap between curious voices saying “I’d love to try it” and cooler ones replying “it’s actually terrible.”
What people said
You know what an andon (paper lantern lamp) is, right? lol
No way, that's not true.
Soy sauce production was actually one of the few major food-manufacturing industries of the time.
Miso, though, was still something each household made itself.
It was a luxury item at first, and only spread widely around the mid-Edo period, apparently.
That's a luxury.
Dried sardines and eggs.
Even lighting a fire wasn't easy.
Gross!!!
No need to jump in with unsolicited warnings like "it's gross" just to show off how small-minded you are.
No, it really is bad though.
A single andon lamp barely lights anything up, and it's said that burning one for five hours cost about 500 yen in today's money.
Rapeseed oil was a luxury for commoners, so they didn't waste it.
You know what a chochin (paper lantern) is, right? lol
So what?
Some old guy who just wants to show off trivia?
If 59 counts as "old guy," then sure?
You're basically a grandpa then.
lol there's an actual grandpa here
If you mean bad-tasting firm (momen) tofu, sure.
Modern tofu is watered down, so as far as the raw ingredient goes, the old-style stuff might actually taste better.
In Edo it would've arrived within a day, probably.
What we now call "Edomae" sushi wasn't properly established until the late Edo period, so sushi was edible by then.
Though since the technique was so new, it's questionable whether parasites were being handled properly.
Apparently a big reason beriberi spread was that rice-polishing technology improved and people started eating white rice.
That was true worldwide back then, so just accept it.
Honestly, old-time Japanese people really were riddled with parasites.
They were still doing pinworm checks (in schools) even into the Heisei era, so it's really only been the last 30-40 years that you could say the parasite problem is gone.
If I remember right, tuna was treated almost like garbage in the Edo period, so you could eat cheap, all-you-can-eat tuna.
By modern standards it'd basically be half-spoiled.
Tuna spoils fast, so by the time it reached Edo it was already going bad.
Until soy-sauce-marinated tuna was invented, of course it was treated as garbage.
Actually there was, sort of.
Since eating meat was officially banned, it happened at back-alley taverns, not out in the open.
They served it under code names like "botan" (boar), "sakura" (horse), and "momiji" (venison) meat.
90% of shops were cash-only.
Mostly it was running a tab and paying on payday.
Day laborers and the like were different, though.
Going about daily life just rinsing your hands with water after touching raw meat or fish is insane.
There was detergent of a sort — things like lye ash-water and rice bran.
Also there's a plant that works as a natural surfactant.
Even today in some countries abroad, people cook and serve food with hands they haven't washed after using the bathroom lol
Guess it comes down to what your body's built up a tolerance for.
Background and key points of this discussion
Many of the claims about Edo-era food life were grounded in actual history. Multiple studies note that oil for andon lamps (rapeseed oil) was expensive for commoners, and that living through dark nights was simply normal life. Soy sauce production only took off in earnest from the Genroku era onward, and is said to have spread widely among ordinary people from the mid-Edo period on. It’s also true that tuna was treated as cheap fish — its reputation only improved once the technique of marinating it in soy sauce (“zuke”) was established. Eating meat was officially taboo, but shops that served game under renamed labels like “botan” (boar), “sakura” (horse), and “momiji” (venison) genuinely existed. The thread showed a clear gap between curiosity — “I’d love to try it” — and the cooler reality check of “it’s actually bad” — but given the constraints on food preservation and hygiene at the time, the honest answer is that Edo-era food simply can’t be judged fairly by modern standards of taste.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel “Nandemo Jikkyo G” board thread “I want to time-slip to the Edo period and eat and drink at a tavern.”
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