The Japanese character for "to eat" 食 has two readings. The first that students of Japanese learn is "taberu" (食べる), which carries connotations that most people associated with eating: sitting at a table with family and friends to consume a meal. The other reading "kuu" (食う) treats the act as a bodily function with no graces. This distinction separated farm women from town women.
From: "Life in the Sewing School (お裁縫所の暮らし)," told by Oshima Mitsu, born 1906
Their teacher sat with the women every day and coached them on manners. Do not put a whole fish in your mouth so that its tail sticks out. Eat it in small bites.
This was particularly difficult for farm women. On the farm, eating even one minute faster was better, so they would throw water in their rice and drink it. They couldn't work if they didn't eat two bowls of rice. When acquaintances came looking for brides, they would judge a woman on how fast she chowed down. So when farm women came to the school, they suddenly had to unlearn that practice and learn how to eat politely.
In telling this Ms. Oshima uses 'taberu' when describing how women at school ate and 'kuu' when describing how farm women ate.
From:
佐賀純一, 佐賀進 「田舎町の肖像」,図書出版社、東京、1993、日本語 - http://amzn.to/sUstqg
This is a collection of 72 reminiscences collected in and around Tsuchiura, a lakeside town located about 50 km northeast of Tokyo. The highlight above is from this edition.
The earlier English book, Memories of Silk and Straw, is a translation of Tsuchiura no Sato: E to Denbun (土浦の里：絵と伝聞) that Dr. Saga published in 1981. It contains 50 reminiscences.
Saga Junichi, Saga Susumu, Garry O. Evans, Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Small-Town Japan, Kodansha America, 1987, English - http://amzn.to/sudJTy , Paperback edition - http://amzn.to/vHQ2SB
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