Nice to meet you again! It is the blog How Unique Japan!
To begin this article, we would love to ask you how to keep your living room and yourself warm.
We know some of you would answer fireplace, wouldn’t you? Yes. It is cozy and comfortable, and even seeing the fire waving always makes us relaxed.
Unfortunately, Japan does not have such a calm place in each house due to the size of the livable area. However, we Japanese have a unique way to keep us warm, instead of a chimney and a fireplace. It is Irori.
If you search for old Japanese houses on the internet, you can see a square cut space filled with ash in the middle of the room.
It is an old Japanese-style fireplace, known as an Irori.
Before any new energy source, such as electricity, was invented, a traditional Japanese fireplace served multiple purposes, including providing light for the room, heating, and even cooking. The concept is deeply concerned with traditional Japanese culture.
Why has Irori become popular?
It is vague about the exact time when it was born. At least, a record has said it is over 1600 years old. Because the discovered ancient house (from such a time) shows us the burning point in the middle of it. The Irori fireplace is familiar in Japan. But why?
On the front page of this blog, we already touched on Japanese characters/habits.
That said, we always focus on good relationships (with neighbors), working for natural environments, since the main product in Japan is agriculture.
Indeed. Old Japanese needed to team up for that duty. Thus, Irori was proper for it. If someone (family or guests, whoever) wanted to keep warm, they would need to sit down around the square fireplace, which naturally caused communication.
So, it works as a relationship improvement.
Besides, it worked as a kitchen. When the Japanese got fish, they pierced them and stuck them into the ash around the fire.
They even suspended the pot from a wooden lattice hanging from the ceiling. So, the old Japanese usually cooked soup or stew.
Clever.
One more feature of Irori
It is not over yet. The Irori also works as a SMOKER. As this blog repeatedly says, Japan is humid, especially in summer. That was why the previous Japanese considered how to keep any fresh food edible.
Then, they got the idea of making preserved foods with smoke from the Irori, because they knew the smoke prevents harmful bacteria or fungi.
Thus, they hung vegetables and fish from the lattice, like the pot (however, they were far from the fireplace, at the proper distance to get smoke).
That worked so well. The smoke from the Irori fireplace killed the bacteria that would make food rot. Additionally, the smoke covered the surface of the food to protect against them. It is like a coating.
The smoke protects not only the food. It is the HOUSE too.
Do you remember? Old Japanese houses were wooden.
That means the house always faced natural environments that contain bacteria and fungi.
So, the Irori fireplace sterilizes them and protects the house from damage by smoking.
(That constructs the house to look vintage with a darkish color from the smoke.)
To close
Indeed. The Irori was a great invention from ancient times. It is respectful.
Besides, many furniture and gadgets from such clever inventions are in Japan.
If you are interested in the other articles (about them), please click the page of Japanese Lifestyle. It is one of our blogs.
It is not yet. We still have three categories about another uniqueness in Japan. They are about food, the Edo era, and religions.
Thank you so much for reading this article!
See you for the next article!