The style of Japanese cuisine in its present form supposedly saw its completion during early modern times. The same period is also known for the marked development of a printing and reading culture. Both phenomena have to be seen in the context of the emergence of an affluent urban life style and a supporting concomitant economical growth. An ever increasing number of advice books of advice offered orientation for people who had to find their way in a society that grew more and more complicated and anonymous (in 1720, the largest city of Edo, modern Tokyo, was the largest city in Japan and alone counted one million inhabitants). These practical manuals often contained collections of rules for polite behaviour in all situations of life, table manners included. In an age, when Confucian learning dominated all kinds of scholarship, it is hardly surprising that the expositions of etiquette or 'rites'-central to Confucianism as it evolved in China-drew on Confucian concepts. This articles investigates the Chinese influence on the development of etiquette rules in early modern Japan and argues that the theoretical framework for of writing about manners as well as the structural arrangement of the meal and even a number of concrete prescriptions for eating certain dishes cannot be understood without the Chinese background