Joel of Far Outliers has interrupted his appalling series on the sufferings of Indians trying to escape Japanese-occupied Burma in 1941-42 to favor us with a delightful triptych of stories about obscure Japanese words, phrases, and customs. I'll quote the first:
塩盛り shiomori 'salt pile' - The other night, as we were leaving our favorite local fish restaurant in Ashikaga, my recently arrived Minnesota in-laws noticed what looked like a small pile of snow beside the door as we left. It turned out to be salt, and there was a matching salt pile on the other side of the entranceway, so I went back in and asked the very friendly and talkative sushi chef (who trained 3 years in San Francisco and 1 on Maui) what the story was. There were no customers at the sushi bar at that moment, so he came outside in the chilly wind and told us the story. The salt has two functions. The most commonly recognized one is to purify the premises by keeping evil spirits out. But the more interesting one is to attract customers in. The latter function apparently goes back to the days when goods traveled by oxcart. The idea was to tempt the oxen to stop and lick the salt, whereupon the traveler might also decide to stop for food or rest. The salt piles were called 塩盛り shiomori 'salt helpings', a term which is otherwise chiefly found in restaurant menus for assorted salty dishes.Isn't that great? Posted by languagehat at March 22, 2006 03:09 PM
Have you seen this video guide (Google video - 8 min) to sushi from the Japan Culture Lab? The filmmakers provide an alternative explanation for shiomori.
Posted by: HP at March 22, 2006 04:59 PMSalt is also one of the pure items according to Shinto, so a lot of establishments have some stashed away somewhere as a blessing. People leave salt as offerings at Shinto shrines, too.
Posted by: Linda at March 22, 2006 10:18 PMGoogle's video guide to sushi was fun. And quite believable, too!
Posted by: Joel at March 23, 2006 08:41 AMyes, that is great.
I have a question on a completely unrelated topic. I cannot find the word 'felge' in any of my dictionaries. I was looking for its origin -- or even a good definition. It's a gymnastics term. It refers to a move on the still rings that is like a slow rotation with the body below the level of the rings. Any ideas?
EA
Posted by: edward almanza at March 23, 2006 06:21 PMI had never heard of it, but googling around it appears to be a German word Felge '(wheel) rim,' which is related to English felly. Does that help?
Posted by: language hat at March 23, 2006 06:32 PMyes, the German Felge does seem a likely relative for the term for this wheel-like movement. Thanks. Terms for athletic and dance movements often have this interesting mimetic quality, like the french terms for ballet movements. And the term 'chandelle' which is a move executed by stunt pilots.
Posted by: edward almanza at March 24, 2006 11:10 PM