For the purpose of clarifying the styles of entertainments of the common people in the period from modern ages to recent times, the trends of food and dish on sara on which vegetable and seaweed salads, etc. were served in the menus of Buddhist ceremonies were analyzed.
As the research material the old records of 12 families distributed in the whole area of the Kagawa Prefecture were used, and 593 menus of 268 Buddhist ceremonies performed during 156 years from 1786 to 1941 were examined.
As a result, following findings were obtained.
1) Food groups and foods varied more remarkably in the period from the Meiji era to the Taisho-Showa era than the period from the Edo era to the Meiji era.
2) Frequency of the use of food groups gradually polarized to both sides of increase and decrease, and the kinds of used foodgroups had been reduced.
3) Only a few kinds of food such as agar and cucumbers showed a remarkable tendency to increase, while other kinds of food tended to decrease and food on sara was patternized.
4) As the variations of dishes from the trend of food viewpoint, the increase of dishes of vegetable and seaweed and, salads with vinegar and the decrease of dishes dressed with sauce were recognized.
