【Reading】もりさだまんこう

【English Name】Morisada Manko

A customs encyclopedia compiled in the late Edo period, officially written as Morisada Manko. The author, Kitagawa Morisada (born in Osaka in 1810), began writing it in 1837 (Tenpo 8) and, over the course of roughly 30 years, completed a monumental work of 35 volumes in all.

A major feature is that it records the living culture of the three cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo while comparing them, and it is furnished with some 1,600 illustrations. Its contents range widely over housing, clothing, currency, the performing arts, games, and more, but in the study of sushi culture the sections on "Seigyo" (livelihoods; volumes 5-6) and "Shokurui" (foods; first volume of the later collection) are important. In these volumes, detailed explanations of ingredients, dishes, and tableware are set down together with illustrations.

Morisada himself was a merchant, but it is said he took up his brush out of regret at ending his life meaninglessly, with the aspiration of recording the lives of common people. It was not published during his lifetime and was put into print for the first time in the Meiji era. In 1908 it was released into the world by the Kokugakuin University Press under the title Ruiju Kinsei Fuzokushi, and an Iwanami Bunko edition (5 volumes) and others are currently available. It is highly valued as an indispensable primary source for studying early modern food culture and the history of sushi.