By the way, do you know how to write oden in Chinese characters?

The answer is . Judging from the second Chinese character which means "rice field," oden may have had some relationship with paddy fields. In fact, it turns out that it has a very interesting background. Removing the prefix, leaves "field" which was the abbreviated form of dengaku, as in miso dengaku.

Dengaku is one of the main dishes of Kyoto. They are rectangular slices of konnyaku (starch made from devil's tongue) on bamboo skewers covered with hot or sweet miso (soybean paste) sauce. In addition to konnyaku, leeks and hanpen can also be stuck into the skewers. As a matter of fact, the ingredients of dengaku cooked in a pot without being stuck into the skewers was oden.

Now we know oden originated from dengaku. But why it related to "rice field" is still not clear. What actually is dengaku? We all know what the character for den stands for . But what does "raku" signify? The Chinese character "raku" is used in words like "ongaku" (music) and "Nogaku" (traditional Japanese drama). Any relation to with them? You bet there are.

Dengaku was a traditional Japanese entertainment, along with Nogaku and Enraku. It was similar to acrobatic feats or street performances, often played by the common people in and around the rice field, and so it was named Dengaku (something played in rice field). It was a leisure activity for the common people. But there are always those who become very skillful. Here too emerged some masters of Dengaku. The most famous among them was the Dengaku-Hoshi. He was good at performing acrobatic feats like riding on a pole. His posture standing on a pole reminded people of the scarecrow standing in the rice field.

Since konnyaku on bamboo skewers looked much like Dengaku-Hoshi performing on one foot people came to call it by his name, and later "hoshi" was dropped to become "Dengaku", and then to "Oden".

So who was Dengaku-Hoshi? Unfortunately the art of Dengaku declined in the modern era. And the tradition ended with no one to carry it on. For this reason there is no way of knowing who Dengaku-Hoshi had been.

We just barely know about some of the people who performed Dengaku. The two most popular entertainments of the medieval ages were Dengaku and Enraku. Enraku later matured into Nogaku, but it seems that both were performed by the same people. But if we go further back in history the distinction between the two becomes vague. This signifies that both may had been the same thing.

As you may know, the founders of Nogaku, Kan-ami and Ze-ami, were both from the Hata clan. And their ancestor was Hata-no Kawakatsu, the founder of Enraku. Therefore, we can safely say that the people performing Dengaku must have been of the Hata family.

Behind the casual dish of oden are the shadows of the Hata-clan, the unique immigrants from the continent. Could it be that Hatas were the ones who invented oden?

Translated by Rie Ishida