Although agriculture played a role in Ainu society, it was a secondary one, supplementing the main diet of fish—especially salmon and trout—, game and a wide variety of wild plants. Game consisted mainly of deer, bear, rabbit, fox, and raccoon dog. But other animals like birds were also part of the Ainu menu.
Food was dried in the sun, boiled and dried, or smoked on racks above a fireplace. The exception was trout, which was grilled before being dried. In order to survive the long hard winters of the Ainu territories, food was stored in elevated storehouses called pu.
Ainu usually ate two meals a day, breakfast and dinner. Lunch was eaten only occasionally. The staple food consisted of a type of soup (ohaw or rur), which could contain meat, fish or vegetables, with a sort of porridge (sayo) as side dish. Fish was also eaten on skewers. Additionally, grains, plants and vegetables were eaten. Fruit, and many wild plants, were eaten raw.
Seasoning consisted of fish or animal fat, salt and other spices. The main Japanese condiments of miso (soy bean paste) and shoyu (soy sauce) were not used.
Interestingly, chopsticks were only used by men. Women used wooden spoons.
1 Also Ezo, Yeso. Current Hokkaido.
2 Landor, Arnold Henry Savage (2001). Alone with the Hairy Ainu or, 3,800 Miles on a Pack Saddle in Yezo and a Cruise to the Kurile Islands. Facsimile reprint of the 1893 edition by John Murray, London. Adamant Media Corporation, 262. ISBN 9781402172656.
3 Information on the Ainu diet was supplied by the Ainu Musuem in Shiraoi, Hokkaido.
You can also licence this image online: 80201-0049 @ MeijiShowa.com.