About Japanese cuisine.
The word kaisekioriginally had little todo with cooking or tea.The kaimeans “bosom”andsekimeans”stone,” and the term comes from the habit of monks in training to carry a heated stone in their robes,the warmth of which was intended to stave off hunger. Over the years,the word came to mean light meals to ward off the pangs of an empty stomach.
The cuisine`s connection with tea began with Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591),the most renowed master of the tea ceremony. The hight caffeine content of the powdered green tea was almost too intense to drink on an empty stomach,so tea ceremony practitioners began serving snacks to better enable guests to enjoy their tea. Rikyu`s course was very simple at first–a bowl of miso soup and three side dishes–but the cooking became more elabolate as other side dishes were added.Although the style of kaiseki created in restaulants like yachiyo based on Rikyu`s philosophy,as chefs we must focus on our curomers`enjoyment of the food,so the structure of our courses differs greatly from the tea master`s. Today we distinguish brtween courses specifically for the tea ceremony –cha-kaiseki–and restaurant courses,known simply as kaiseki. There in another style,kyo-kaiseki,based on kyoto`s traditional local cuisine, including shojin-ryori vegetarian temple food. In a city as small as Kyoto,of course,we have seen much overlapping of kaiseki and these local dishes,so I would have to say my meals are part of the Kyo-kaiseki tradition.