I was in Shibuya the other day, and happened to walk past the Tobacco and Salt Museum. I haven’t been there for years, and they were holding an interesting looking exhibition of paintings from the Edo Period, so I decided to check it out.
The paintings were gorgeous, and although it’s maybe too small to make a special trip for, if you happen to be in Shibuya before November 30, it’s only 300 yen and quite enjoyable.
You can also see some of the pictures here. The site is in Japanese, but even if you can’t read, just click on the text immediately beneath the flash presentation: http://www.jti.co.jp/Culture/museum/tokubetu/0810_event/index.html
The tobacco and salt museum is about Japan’s two of Japan’s most important commodities. This diorama shows a tobacco shop from the Edo Period.
Japan doesn’t have natural salt deposits, so they had to get all their salt from the sea.
A model ship made of salt.
Old tobacco ads.
The tobacco museum’s website and contact information are here: http://www.jti.co.jp/Culture/museum/Welcome.html
Hello from New York. Very interesting. I have never heard of that.
And we cross paths again Quirky Japan Blog!
Over at http://www.chickenmonkeydog.com we were just talking about quirky salt-related items. Specifically, do you think it matters what body of water the salt comes from? Would that change the taste?
http://www.chickenmonkeydog.com/crude-as-salt/