Food is a product of culture, and types of foods, cooking methods, and ways of eating can contribute themselves to important contents of culture as parts of the history of living.
This thesis, on the basis of the culmination of the existing studies o...
Food is a product of culture, and types of foods, cooking methods, and ways of eating can contribute themselves to important contents of culture as parts of the history of living.
This thesis, on the basis of the culmination of the existing studies of Gaya's history, tries to explicate aspects of Gaya people's eating life through examining properties of their eating life by times and areas, and through investigating what they ate, and how they stored, cooked, and ate foods, based on literatures and archeological data about cereals, nuts, fish and shellfish, and meats.
In chapter 2 on materials for food, we array cereals, fish and shellfish, and meats based on records of literatures and archeological data. Though there are no data about vegetables and seaweeds, we can conjecture from the level of agriculture and fishing at that time that Gaya people would eat them. Gaya people basically were dependent on farming for their living, but some people were occupied with fishing. In addition, we have learned that they enjoyed eating life by hunting animals and raising livestock.
In chapter 3 on storage, we find out, from the distribution of storage holes in housing remains and traces on earthenware, that Gaya people stored foods in storage holes, by fermentation, by broiling, by drying fish, fruits, meats, and by pickling.
Gaya people ate some foods row, used the broiling, steaming, boiling, and fermentation as cooking methods, and seasoned foods with salts.
Steamers unearthed from various remains show that food production was carried out stably by the cooking method of steaming.
There are many types of steamers differentiated by forms of holes and bottoms, numbers of holes, and handles. These variances are due to differences of stuffs, times, and areas.
Gaya people seem to have used soup scoops and rice scoops when eating, but we could only conjecture, without any trace of using spoons, that they would use them. Some tableware has a tall foothold and is big in size, which later have been replaced by small tableware due to use of various food materials and development of cooking methods.
In chapter 4 on properties of Gaya's eating life by times and areas, we learn that jars and pots had decreased in number since the 4th century but tableware increase in number with increase of earthenware with a cap.
Gaya people once had daily meals twice a day, but since the 5th century, the ruling class, which had enough economic abilities, could have had them three times a day. However, not all Gaya people could afford rich food materials.
As Korea is placed at the east neighbour of China, Korean cooking culture have close relationship with Chinese food culture and they have developed in mutual influence. In case of Gaya, it is highly implausible for us to be able to restore its eating culture in detail. However, remains of food culture from literatures and archeological data, as well as data from The Three States and China, tell us that Gaya people could have enjoyed various aspects of eating life using the whole food materials like meats, fish and shellfish, nuts, and cereals, which they could got from the nature and through cultivation.