by Doctor Science
Things I Have Learned: when you go to the “hot food pay by the pound” steam trays, even at the *good* supermarket, don’t get the Asian-style Fish with Ginger and Scallions — at least not if it’s mid-afternoon, long after the lunch rush.
It may have been the Lemon Chicken, but my money’s on the Fish.
At least it turns out they have Foodborne Illness forms I can fill out at the store, to be sent on to the appropriate health department (at the Township level in this part of NJ). You, too, can contribute valuable data to the CDC! This is definitely one area where I’m all behind the jack-booted feet of oppressive government regulations, because it’s *really easy* to do things in food handling and preparation that are cheaper and faster — until you get just a little unlucky. In my home cooking, I’m my own jackbooted thug, but what works for a single-family kitchen isn’t going to for a large-scale business.
Looking for artwork to illustrate this post and improve your minds, I found this Hokusai painting:
Dried Salmon and Mice, it appears (translations gratefully accepted). I don’t know enough about Japanese/East Asian iconography to say whether it’s meant to carry a “message”, as it might in Western art. For instance, this Clara Peeters painting is in the National Museum of Women in the Arts:
Typically called a “breakfast piece,” this type of still life realistically depicts household abundance, with no subtle moral or subtext.
Nonsense. Someone has failed Western European Iconography 101.
In European paintings (before the 19th century, anyway), cats consistently symbolize lust and unfaithfulness. Oysters, as now, symbolize lust. I don’t know about shrimp, but I’m guessing they’re another symbol of sensuality and self-indulgence, because they’re messy and a lot of trouble to eat for not much nourishment.
Fish, on the other hand, have long been symbols of Christianity. We should note that the actual fish in this picture are either elevated above the shellfish and lustful cat, or have fallen prey to the cat’s desires. The wikipedia entry on Peeters says [citation needed]:
Some believe religious symbolism was prevalent in her paintings; here the fish, symbol of Christ, is placed in the position of a cross.
— that is, fishes are crossed over each other.
Why would the artist do this, and why would patrons buy it? Barbara Wells Sarudy points out:
At the time that Clara Peeters was painting religious imagery was forbidden in the Dutch Reformed Protestant Church. Artistic conventions were developed to make coded references to life, death, & religion, so her paintings conveyed a meaning to her patrons of much more than objects in a still life. Each painting would be a visual puzzle to be decoded by the viewer.
It’s even possible that Peeters and her patron were secretly Catholic, and this painting was intended as a conversation piece — something to prompt discussion at a dinner or gathering — for a game of “more learnèd than thou”, but also a starting point for Catholics to talk about their faith with each other in private, outside public view.
The page you are linking to has a title on the top expressing amazement that Hokusai was 88 and could produce artwork like that. So no explanation of iconography
The full work has writing on the left side
http://www.book-navi.com/hokusai/art/sake-e.html
and the furthest left is the name Hokusai took when he was 75 and it reads Gakyo Rojin Manji or “crazy about art old man Manji” and before that, it says ‘previously [zen] Hokusai Iitsu inspected [aratame]’ which is I think a joke, because woodblocks had to be inspected by the Edo City Magistrate before they could be published. It is in the style of a new year’s print for the year of the rat in the chinese zodiac, but according to this page
http://www.book-navi.com/hokusai/life/hokusai-manji-e.html
it is listed as a brush painting manual, which may account for its clean lines and simple style.
Year of the Rat! Now I understand why the rats have such cute faces, instead of being a picture of “vermin getting into the nice food”.
“Things I Have Learned: when you go to the “hot food pay by the pound” steam trays, even at the *good* supermarket, don’t get the Asian-style Fish with Ginger and Scallions — at least not if it’s mid-afternoon, long after the lunch rush.”
A long time ago, we’d game in the college union. On Sundays, we’d get there at 11 AM. The beef and broccoli in the Chinese mini-buffet steam table was a rich dark brown and bright green.
By 3 PM, it was grey and olive drab.
Yikes – food-borne illnesses are no fun. Discussion of religious symbolism is appropriate, since one tends to spend a lot of time worshipping porcelain gods after eating bad fish 🙂
The cultural and religious symbolism in European art during the Middle Ages and after always interests me. Sometimes they laid it on with such a trowel that you need a checklist and interpreter – and that’s even when there was no censorship-driven need to be obscurely allegorical.
Hope you feel better soon!
A knowledgeable friend elseweb believes this is a traditional (if uncommon) theme; here is another version, attr. Nagasawa Rosetsu — also Edo period.
She says:
I guess, then, that the painting was intended as a gift, to be given to a prosperous merchant.
I’ve heard that bird-and-flower paintings were almost all created as gifts, with the choice of bird, flower, and associated poem conveying a specific good wish, and it looks to me that this is the same sort of thing.
The book doesn’t mention salmon in particular, but does say that a piece of dried fish accompanies a gift to convey several meanings
I think your friend might be talking about noshi, which is a strip of dried abalone that traditionally goes around a present.
http://japanese-culture.info/keywords/daily_life/others-daily_life/noshi_mizuhiki
I don’t think that the category extends to all dried fish, though the whole genre of surimono were filled with who could make the most erudite and obscure allusion.
Of course, abalone is one of those foods that has a really long history in Japanese culture,
http://www.tokyofoundation.org/en/topics/japanese-traditional-foods/vol.-17-abalone
Your friend is right about the possible meaning of rat, the rat is the first animal on the Chinese zodiac, having got there through quick thinking (a lot of different versions of the story)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_zodiac#The_Great_Race
here are a few links for you
http://www.printsofjapan.com/Raigo_and_his_rats.htm
http://ridiculouslyinteresting.com/2012/10/07/a-cluster-of-rats/
Though I’m not sure if showing you a bunch of rats is the best thing when you are overcoming nausea…