The Ninja Diet of Feudal Japan

Just FYI, Japanese yams have FAR less water in them than western yams, so account for that if making these with western yams.

“Yes, these were ninja hardtack.” (clack clack) One day, there will absolutely be a video compilation of hardtack variations from around the world.

The "ninja" hunger pills were actually just common Japanese travel food of the era. Everybody made it and used it. Like Yesterday's hardtack and portable soup, and today's beef jerky and corn nuts for a road trip. That being said, it is very useful information. Also, some of the "hunger pills" had herbs that were specifically to prevent traveler's diarrhea.

About the cut off heads: In ancient Japan when you killed someone in battle (or in an assassination), you had to take their head as evidence, so you could collect your reward later. But if you were in battle and killed a lot of people, carrying all those heads could be hard. That is probably why the scroll teaches us how to attach them on a horse. If you still had trouble carrying them all, you could just keep the nose and get rid of the head, since the nose could be enough to prove your kill.

Loads of sugar, loads of flavor, and some ginseng and other medicinal things. These were basically energy drinks in solid form, very clever!

"And they literally mean "hardbaked", and can last for years" YES, SAY IT "Yes, this were Ninja hardtack"

Fun fact: Kaopectate used to use a form of clay as an active ingredient called 'Kaolinite' to absorb toxins and sooth the stomach. Today they use Bismuth subsalicylate which is the same active ingredient in Pepto. A compound derived from minerals. It would seem that Ninja knew their medicine.

The type of yam might be more important than we realize. It is possible the intended yam was not just your regular sweet potato, cook-it-in-a-stew style yam. It might actually have been a konjac yam ( which isn't actually a yam at all but that's what people call it). The yam itself has so-so nutritional value but its starch is used to make foods gelatinous and springy. I wonder if by using the konjac yam, it would improve the texture and workability of the energy balls.

These might have not been the main diet of ninjas, but rather something similar to chocolate in world war rations: emergency energy boosters. It would explain the absurd quantity of sugar and why it's recommended to feed to horses for energy since they'd be energy supplements.

Since you're going to soak the kikatsugan three years, you can also make some soy sauce from scratch at the same time; since it takes at last two years to ferment to ripeness.

The Ninja museum in Iga is run by the Iga clans official grandmaster. He's mentioned these in several documentaries on ninja history. I'm sure he'd give you his recipe. They give demos on the weapons use, I can't see the food recipes being secret. Ill try and dig up the contact info if you want. Cheers as ever Max!

I think it's important to note that the yams in the original recipe were most likely neither western nor Japanese yams (both of which are from the Solanaceae family). For the time period it had to of used true yams (Dioscorea) often called African Yams and sometimes Chinese yams. These are a completely different vegetable than what you would find as a yam at your normal supermarket.

Lots of video games have used things like "medicine balls" or "pellets" as healing items. I never really thought about it, but they were likely referencing these hyorogan. Medicinal ingredients thought to heal you from your injuries? Sounds like a video game item to me, but hey.

Some of these have echoes of dwarf bread. "The dwarf bread was brought out for inspection. But it was miraculous, the dwarf bread. No one ever went hungry when they had some dwarf bread to avoid. You only had to look at it for a moment, and instantly you could think of dozens of things you'd rather eat. Your boots, for example. Mountains. Raw sheep. Your own foot."

I have more confidence in Max's ability to keep this channel interesting for 3 years than I do in Youtube Corporate keeping Youtube a relevant platform that long... I hope BOTH exist in 3 years, but if it had to be one or the other, my vote is for Max.

I made these about 5 years with ingredients from the local Asian market. My aunt loved them so much I only ate 3 and she would eat them at work. She would constantly ask me to make them but I never had the time before she passed but I've been thinking about making them again since I'm far closer to that market and it does taste great

Another fun bit of trivia: The information on how to properly tie someone up was called shibari, which some folks in the comments might recognize as the art of aesthetic erotic rope bondage. The whole point of OG shibari was to be able to control the restraints to achieve the desired result (including torture using stress positions and circulation impairment that could be tightened, shifted, and loosened readily and easily as well as in very specific ways and areas), and to ensure your restraints properly fit the size, build, strength, and shape of your captive, while at the same time ALSO creating a pleasing arrangement of ties and knots, because bob forbid you do anything in Japan, including restrain and torture your enemy, in a manner that isn't also artfully aesthetic 😆

In feudal Japan, commoners were limited by law as to what color clothing fabrics they could wear. This included Indigo (blue) and brown so the recommendation for a ninja to wear these colors to blend in makes sense. Also, looking forward to the segment on making 飢渇丸 (Hunger balls) 3 years from now. May I suggest creating a short teaser segment now that includes just the creation of the sake infusion so some viewers can start their own sake soak in preparation as well??? Marking my calendar now! Arigatou!!!

I love this channel so much. So much heart and passion goes into every single recipe, and the history lessons that come with them are super interesting. Reminds me a lot of watching those travel/history documentaries as a kid, but better. Thank you so much for all the hard work you put into your videos.

Fun fact about why Ninja are depicted dressed in black…It actually comes from Kabuki, and other forms of traditional Japanese theater. In Kabuki, the stage hands, called Kuroko, were always dressed in black. This was a form of visual shorthand, a signal to the audience that these people are “invisible” and are not an actual part of the scene or characters in it, and that they should be ignored. From there, the idea in popular culture was for ninja to dress in black because, thanks to that tradition from Kabuki, black symbolizes stealth and invisibility, so the audience is meant to perceive them as being stealthy…while still actually being visible to the audience for purposes of entertainment.