Shojin Cuisine

In the Buddhism in Japan basically to kill animals are prohibited and not permitted to eat meet so the monk made effort to have good taste meal by using vegetables, beans and grains for hundreds years.

The point of Shojin cuisine is all materials are cooked as there was no custom to eat vegetables as raw even we eat raw fish. First of all, vegetables removes of astringent taste but not taste, before cooking so takes more time than other style of cuisine. There complicated process and techniques affected to the later chefs and helped to raise the general level of Kyoto cuisine.

And also the cuisine is prepares with limited materials, to have more variations, more process and detailed hidden techniques. The meal has to be balanced dietetically, not disapointable, taste good and keep it tastes for long time. For example, by soybean can make Tofu, oil, Miso paste, Soy source, Soy milk, Yuba, Abura Age, Natto, etc.

Actual Shojin Cuisine

Shojin cuisine is one of the indispensable aspects of their training for Buddhism. At the same time, Shojin cuisine became popular for annual events in the public level. Actual Shojin cuisine of a restaurant is mainly focused on Epicureanism.

Some of the temples have service to have experience the training of Buddhism with Shojin cuisine. Normally, people stay a night. The cuisine could be a traditional or modern depends on the temple.

In Kyoto, most of the temple was ordered to a restaurant when they want to serve to a client instead of making Shojin cuisine in there. So in the majority of the cases, the restaurants, are highly sophisticated locate near the temples.