What looks like a whimsical medieval comic about rats turns out to be a detailed record of how food was prepared in elite Japanese households, says Eric Ratt, a history professor at the University of Kansas.
Created between 1550 and 1650 CE and now in the Spencer Collection at the New York Public Library, the scroll depicts rats preparing dishes for a wedding banquet.
While some researchers view these early illustrated scrolls as precursors to modern manga, this particular scroll offers detailed insight into medieval Japanese cooking.
What Professor Ratt Discovered in the Rat Tale
Ratt says, “Many stories about rats were written in medieval and early modern Japan, and many of them transformed into illustrated scrolls that combined images with text.”
This example is unique because it meticulously depicts scenes of food preparation. Ratt explained that besides this scroll, there is only one other illustrated scroll that showcases culinary processes from that period. “So, as a food historian, I wanted to understand what I could learn from this rat story,” he added.
In Japanese tradition, rats had a place of honor. They weren’t the filthy, disease-ridden creatures of Western lore; instead, people admired them for their intelligence and industriousness, associated them with wealth and good fortune, and often cast them in human roles in folktales.
In “The Illustrated Rat Tale,” the king of the rats wants to take a human bride, but she doesn’t know he is a rat. So he and his entourage stage a masquerade and throw a wedding banquet fit for a shogun.
Ratt says the scroll offers a glimpse into the political and social climate of the time, and its banquet-preparation scenes are packed with cultural detail.
“The way the artists depicted the rats preparing for the banquet provides insight into the division of labor and the working process in the kitchens of elite households in the 16th century, at a time when there were very few other visual sources,” Ratt said.
He adds that the scroll shows specially trained male chefs — the rats — performing prestigious tasks such as slicing meat, while female workers handled manual labor like grinding rice outside.
All the rats have roles and names, and they wear clothing that signals their social status. Lower-status rats wear simple robes and sashes, while higher-status rats don more elaborate attire.
They drink sake and chat, joking about the difficulties of their work. For example, a rat preparing a swan complains about the strength of its bones. Historical figures, such as the famous tea master Sen no Rikyū, also appear as rats.
Ratt points out that the story positions animals as food producers rather than merely consumers.
Turning a high-status human household into a colony of rats lets the scroll reveal aspects of elite life that few visual sources show.
By depicting rats running the household, the tale lets the authors mock the elite without risking retribution from human rulers.
How does the story end? Ultimately the ruse is uncovered: a few rats fail to maintain their human appearance, and the bride discovers their deception.
Professor Ratt’s article was published in Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture.
