Nice to meet you again! It is the blog How Unique Japan!
To begin this article, I would love to ask you how to keep your living room and yourself warm.
I know some of you would answer fireplace, wouldn’t you? Yes. It is cozy, 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 fireplace. It is Irori.
If you search Japanese old 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 of fireplace, Irori.
Before any new energy source, like electricity, was invented, a Japanese old fireplace worked in multiple ways, for example, the light for room, heating, and even cooking. It is deeply attached to the previous Japanese lifestyle.
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, I already touched on Japanese characters/habits. That said, we always focus on how to keep good relationships around natural environments, due to the Japanese main product being agriculture.
Old Japanese needed to team up for that duty. Thus, Irori was proper for it. If somebody (family or guests whoever) wanted to keep warm, they would need to sit down around the squared fireplace, which naturally caused the communication. So, it also 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 says repeatedly, Japan is humid, especially every summer. That was why previous Japanese considered how to keep any fresh food edible.
Then, they made an idea if fresh food gets smoked, it could be in eatable condition for a long. They hung vegetables and fish from the lattice, like the pot (however, they were far from the fireplace, in the proper distance to get smoke).
That worked so well. The smoke from the Irori fireplace killed some bacteria that would make food rot. Additionally, the smoke covered the surface of the food to protect it from other bacteria outside.
The smoke protects not only the food. It is the HOUSE too. Do you remember that any Japanese houses in the old style were wooden? That means the house always faces affection to natural environments that contain bacteria and fungi.
So, the Irori fireplace sterilizes them and protects the house with a smoking coating for extra damage. (That constructs the house look vintage with a darkish color from the smoke.)
To close
So, the Japanese fireplace Irori was ideas and knowledge from old times. It is respectful.
Besides, many furniture and gadgets from such clever inventions are in Japan, like the fireplace.
Do you even want to see the front page? Check it out here!
Thank you so much for reading this article! There are still many undone pages following. Please wait for the updates!
OK then! SEE YOU SOON!