How to dine with a shogun, make solid gold soup, sculpt with a fish, and turn seaweed into a symbol of happiness are only some of the lessons found in medieval and early modern culinary writings from Japan.  These same works also suggest a way to define cuisine as an intellectual and artistic practice.  This talk explores these writings to uncover this lost definition of cuisine that flourished in Japan from 1400 to 1868 in which food was made symbol, art form, and object of contemplation.  This "fantasy with food" began in medieval rituals that featured sacred foods not meant to be eaten.  It was continued by early modern food writers, who described whimsical dishes and fanciful banquets that would have been impossible to create in real life, thereby turning dining into a voyeuristic literary pleasure.  Thus, beyond dishes lost to the modern Japanese table like crane soup, medieval and early modern food writers teach us that the central ingredient of early modern Japanese cuisine was the imagination.