VEGETABLE & FISH OILS, EDIBLE & INDUSTRIAL.

Manuscript on paper, entitled on first leaf “Osaka honsei abura shirashibori okoshikata hisho” 大阪本製油白絞り置し方秘書 [“Secret Methods of Rendering Genuine Osaka-Made Vegetable Oils”].

57 pp. 8vo (200 x 90 mm.), orihon (accordion) format, orig. patterned boards. [Osaka]: from final leaf in rough trans.: “On a good day in August 1866 Secrets received by Kajimaya Hidesuke 鹿嶋屋英助 in Sesshū Nishinomiya [between Osaka & Kōbe].”

For many centuries, greater Osaka has been the center of the vegetable oil trade in Japan, active in both processing and distributing a variety of oils for cooking, personal, and industrial purposes. The primary oils were derived from rapeseed (for illumination and cooking), sesame, and other seeds. Fish-based oils, rendered from Hokkaido herring, were also shipped to Osaka, where they were processed, traded, and sold to the rest of the country. The Tokugawa shogunate established oil wholesaler guilds in Osaka to prevent shortages and to stabilize prices of these essential commodities.

Our manuscript describes the processing of oils of rapeseed, camellia, paulownia, sesame, oaks, walnuts, whales, castor bean, and fish. Some of the oils were blended with others and then scented with various herbs and essences (cloves, musk, cinnabar, etc.). These were sold as cosmetics and hair oils. The manuscript offers many formulas, including proportions, to produce these cosmetic oils. Prices are given along with names and addresses of distributors (and their icons) throughout Japan. Particular attention is given to the distributors in Edo, the biggest of all markets.

Towards the end, prices of many of the oils and other materials used are given for the Osaka market. At the end are “secret” recipes for making fish oils.

We learn at the beginning of our manuscript that Surugaya Kitarō 駿河屋喜太郎, in the Semba area of Osaka, gave this secret information to Kajimaya.

Some worming, but a nice copy.

Price: $3,500.00

Item ID: 11490