The history of Buddhist cuisine fucha ryōri: from Ōbaku Zen monk cuisine to modern days

The article analyzes the Buddhist vegetarian cuisine of the Ōbaku Zen school called fucha ryōri and its history in Japan from its inception in Nagasaki with Chinese monks to the present day. The Ōbaku school, the third branch of Japanese Zen Buddhism, which appeared after Rinzai and Sōtō, was established in Japan during the Tokugawa period (1603–1868) by Chinese emigrants led by Ingen Ryūki (1592–1673), who arrived to the islands in 1654. Despite the fact that Ōbaku did not make a significant revolution in Japanese Buddhist community, its ceremonial, routine, and cultural aspects of the teaching, imbued with novelty and otherness, attracted Japanese people, since they made it possible to learn a different culture, and significantly influenced the unique image of the Edo era. This also applies to fucha ryōri cuisine, which, being part of the Buddhist teaching, adhered to the same basic principles as the Japanese Buddhist cuisine shōjin ryōri, but had distinctive features related to both the menu and the ceremonial, preserved even now, more than three centuries later.
The article describes the origins of fucha ryōri in Japan in its connection with the teachings of Ōbaku Zen, its traditional features that have become key characteristics, as well as the assimilation of fucha ryōri into a foreign cultural environment. Particular attention is paid to the description of the original menu, the color, taste, and methodological symbolism of the cuisine, the rules for serving fucha ryōri dishes, which, along with obvious indulgences in the diet (the abundant use of oil and kuzu starch), distinguished it from shōjin ryōri. The author concludes that the cooking of the Ōbaku monks brought a significant number of innovations to the Japanese diet, ranging from acquaintance with beans, bamboo sprouts, lotus roots, the popularization of the alternative tea tradition, and ending with the introduction of new variations of already familiar dishes into daily diet. At present, shōjin ryōri, enriched with local elements, is prepared not only in the temples of Ōbaku, but also in secular restaurants, and any guest interested in vegetarian cuisine can appreciate the taste and harmony of the centuries-old traditions of the two countries and modern ideas.

1. Kabanov, A.M. (1993). Buddizm v epokhu Tokugava [Buddhism in the Tokugawa Era]. In T.P. Grigorieva (Ed.), Buddizm v Yaponii [Buddhism in Japan] (pp. 278–301). Moscow: Nauka. (In Russian).