Everyday Cooking and Festival Cooking


Offering at festive occasions and Kantsukasa (people who communicate with God)	Offering at festive occasions	Making Iiyachi

By 32 of Meiji period(1899), the cruel poll tax had been continued and people on the island had to live without having much food to eat in order to deliver grains and fabrics as tax. Even after the poll tax was abolished, their lives didn’t change much.
The staple food they had was potatoes though it was not enough to fill their stomachs three times a day so that they ate other grains and even a trunk of cycad to survive.
During Taisho period (1912 〜 1925), their eating habit didn’t change much. Then Showa period came in 1926, and not only was the new kind of rice introduced, but also various kinds of potatoes as well. However, there were very few people being able to eat rice mainly. Most of the people had nhnui ( potato cake ), nhnukai ( wheat gruel ), ahnuzuhseh ( chestnut gruel ), mainukai ( rice gruel ), shihchinukungahkai ( cycad fruit gruel ) and the like as staple food, fukunahna ( dandelion ) , shidaminushu ( snail soup ) , hitatie-no-kachi ( lees of soy sauce ) , and seafood. Until the beginning of the year 30’s of Showaperiod, children were always ravenous.
It is not always at the festival occasion for people to cook something special and extraordinary. Housewives of all the families would have to be busy with cooking special meals in each special occasion such as; completion of the house, funeral, memorial mass service, birthday, juhrukunichi (16th day Festival ) , sanichi ( March Third Day ) , harvest festival, Bon festival, seasonal festival, kitsugan, Tanadhui Festival, Nahki Festival, and so on.
Especially, on the occasions like the celebration of house completion, funeral, and memorial mass service, people welcomed many guests so that neighbors and relatives gathered around and cooked with yuimahru (the spirit of helping one another).
This tradition has been inherited even now.