On the Route of Importation of Paddy Rice Culture into Japan, in its Relation to Susi, a Kind of Soured Fish Products.

Susi is now a days one of the most familiar cookery among us. The birthplace of this cookery seems to be among Miao-Tribe of S. China according to some classics of Han dynasty. At that time (I Century A.D.) it spread to China proper and became one of favorite dishes among Chinese, which developed to its maximum at about XIII Centuries, whence it declined gradually, and had disappeared from ordinary ménu since XVII Century. Some travellers of Sung and Ming Dynasties describes queer Susi of apes, of mayflies etc. among Miaos. Mountain trives of natives in Formosa cook fishes and meat of game beasts in similar ways today. Essentially, Susi is a mixture of cooked rice with fishes, meat, or vegetables, soaked with vinegar, whereas in earlier times, as well as among promitive trives, Susi is a kind of preserved fish, and lactic acid, fermented from starch portion of cooked rice, was used instead of the ordinary vinegar, viz. acetic acid. The authors made survey over methods of Susi-cooking in Japan, and found that there are, according to localities, every phases of transitions between the primitive lactic acid fermentation method to the modern use of the ordinary vinegar. It is noteworthy that the promitive or semi-promitive types of Susi are distributed only in western Japan, including Kinki, Chūgoku, Sikoku and N. Kyūshū. The fact that no primitive forms were found in S.Kyūshū. Means that Susi, a cookery priarily composed of rice and fishes, was not imported to Japan from S.China (Miao) via Formosa, Liukiu and Southern Island, taking advantage of Kurosio. The Black Japan Current. That the primitive formes are distributed exclusively in N.Kyūshū and around Seto-naikai (the Inland Sea of Seto) strongly indicates that Susi was inroduced from Central China over Eastern China Sea directly to our contry, and, since it is a very promitive cookery, directly connected with rice, the paddy rice culture is also very plausible to be imported through the same course with Susi, viz. S. China → Central China → North Kyūshū