Traditional Japanese meals

I would like to know what the Japanese would traditionally eat throughout the day, ie the breakfast, lunch, dinner, and possible snacks. I'm not looking for recipes, just perhaps a meal plan, daily menu or even just a list of items eaten for a certain meal. Any links or books on the subject would be great. I'm interested in the traditional meals, not nowadays when many Japanese eat similar to Americans/Europeans. Thanks!

Rice. Fish.

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2035.html

I dont know about every day stuff, but japanese breakfasts are one of our favorite things when travelling. A good japanese breakfast will consist of rice, pickles, miso soup, a piece of grilled fish, some tamagoyaki (omelette), seaweed, and boiled vegetables, wasked down with tea. An alternative is rice porridge which is essentially congee. Natto beans are also common, I have to say I gag when I try to eat them, the texture is beyond disgusting.

I've seen plenty of things for lunch, bento are a good choice but a lot of japanese eat ramen, udon, or soba which are quick fixes, or sometimes essentially what they would east for dinner.

I am a Japanese, 60 years old. My father was born in 1926 in an island in the inland sea or Setonaikai. I have heard his daily life, especially everyday foods. When he was a child, he ate rice, but sometimes sweet potato. His mother must buy rice, but as for sweet potato, they can harvest it from their own field. Honestly their family did not have much money (that was quite common in the country side 80 years ago), so they wanted to obtain foods without spending money. They lived in an island, so my father can get fish, octopus and clam. I think they bought soi-source, salt and miso. Sugar was expensive. I think if it were in the mountain area, they could not catch fish so easily, so they should eat something other than fish.

On the other hand, I am a fan of a Japanese novelist, Shotaro Ikenami who was roughly the same age as my father. His essay tells me that he ate Tempra, Sushi, Soba and so on. He was living in Tokyo, so his food life was quite different from that of my father. My mother was a daughter of Osakan merchant, and her food life was somewhat similar to Shotaro Ikenami. Even in Tokyo, meats (beef, pork and chicken) were not so popular, and in the country side, they were quite rare.

If you say "traditional" Japanese breakfast is rice, miso-soup, Japanese omelet (tamago-yaki), nori, and a piece of salmon, which are typical ryokan breakfast, I don't say it's wrong, but most of Japanese did not eat them 100 years ago. Japan was vegetarian country, because most of the people were living in the country side and they lived self-supporting life. We could not get cattle to eat them 100 years ago. We had oxen, but they are used as farm-worker. Of course, I do not deny some exceptions: rich people living in big cities should have ate beef 100 years ago, but it should be rare case if you see the whole Japan.

When I was a child living in Osaka, my father and mother earned money, so our family bought every food stuff. Basically my father didn't like fish (I guess fish we could buy in Osaka at that time was not so good as compared to that my father got by his hand in his childhood), so the "meat" we ate was beef and pork. We also bought vegetables (cabbage, Chinese cabbage, potato, onion, tomato, carrot, etc), eggs, milk, cheese and butter.

Honestly, I don't go back to lifestyle of Edo era, which is more than 150 years ago, but I want to say that today's Japanese "traditional" foods are not so traditional. I think it is, say, recent 50 year's style.