2020 Volume 85 Issue 3 Pages 464-483
This paper elucidates the processes of commoditization of ingredients and outsourcing for banquets by analyzing the private documents of farm family A of Nanyo City in Yamagata Prefecture. This paper also focuses on how the system in which banquets are based on cooperation and contribution by guests has changed over the past 200 years. The heads of family A had served as the village mayors before the modern era, and they possessed 1,260 village-related and 302 private documents concerning the village residents. These menus were put into effect through actions by family A members such as recording, conservation, referring, and cooking based on the records, that is, historical and physical activity. These activities comprise not only family cooking, but also community cooking: they cooked party dishes together using communal ingredients, that is, geographical and physical cooperation. These banquet menus emerged from the confluence of historic activity and geographical cooperation.
