Season 13, Episode 22: Nourishing the Nation -- Bonus Episode
For most of Japan’s history, the vast majority of its people refrained from eating the meat of domestic land animals. Although this dietary tradition was over a thousand years old by the advent of the Meiji Period, it was not an eternal custom, nor was it as universal as the national histories often imply.
It is generally understood that Buddhism came to Japan sometime in the mid-500s and according to the ancient texts was the cause of no small amount of strife among Japan’s ruling class. Some like the Mononobe Clan vociferously opposed this foreign religion, arguing that the kami native to Japan were angered by its presence. The Soga Clan and Prince Shotoku famously championed the newly-arrived religion and triumphed in the ensuing armed conflict, driving the Mononobe Clan from the halls of power.
While this support from powerful clans helped protect Japanese Buddhism from hostile local competitors, it was Emperor Temmu who took the radical step of dictating policy from a Buddhist perspective. In 675 CE, he declared that it was illegal for anyone in Japan to eat domesticated animal meat from April first to September 30 every year. In the Nara Period these bans were reinforced and expanded and the consumption of meat was effectively stigmatized.
There was, of course, still fairly steady demand for animal products such as leather, which meant that having a group of people tend animals for those products remained a necessity. Those people and their descendants would eventually become known as eta and hinin, and during the Meiji Period they were grouped under the large umbrella term of “burakumin.” It’s also worth noting that this limitation was generally considered limited to domestic animal meat, meaning that any meat acquired by hunting was fair game. In fact, throughout most of Japanese history, the meat most commonly consumed by Yamato people was boar and deer. Thus the meat ban was not necessarily against meat altogether but against certain kinds of meat.
The introduction of domestic meat consumption during the Meiji Period was hardly the first time that foreign food trends managed to wriggle into the Japanese mainstream. There are obvious examples like the introduction of green tea - allegedly brought by the monk Saicho from China - but there is also the case of Tempura. The art of battering and pan-frying food in cooking oil is not native to Japan but was introduced by Dutch merchants who lived on Dejima island off the coast of Nagasaki. I, for one, am frankly very thankful for this cross-cultural exchange because I love Tempura and think it rules.
But what lay behind this new urge to get Japanese people to eat meat? Encouraging a protein-rich diet was one small part of a larger effort to transform Japan from a semi-feudal confederation into a modern nation capable of competing against colonial western powers. The concept of modernization promoted by government authorities was called “Bunmei-Kaika,” which literally translates to “civilization and enlightenment.” This effort was championed, in part, by friend of the pod Fukuzawa Yukichi. In those heady early days of the 1870s, many scholars and officials who promoted Bunmei Kaika were willing to consider some truly radical and frankly mind-blowing ideas. You may recall how Mori Arinori, for example, advocated for abandoning the Japanese language wholesale and adopting English. While this is an extreme suggestion, it is nevertheless a good example of the degree to which the Meiji government was utterly convinced that so-called “western” ways were the (ahem) “bestern” ways.
However, while radical ideas and out-of-the-box thinking was welcomed by the intellectual leaders of the Meiji Revolution, the vast majority of common people were not quite as keen on giving up long-held cultural norms. The stigma against eating meats like beef, pork, and chicken -- all of which required domestic production -- was still a powerful social force to overcome. The Meiji government was willing to take drastic measures to convince their citizens to round out their nutrition by adding animal proteins so that said citizens could more effectively serve as soldiers and laborers. This meant involving the emperor himself.
You may recall that the emperor’s diet had been one of the many ways in which that office expressed its power during the Heian Period. During that period, the emperor’s meals consisted of several dozen small plates, traditionally a hundred, which featured food from every corner of his domain. Now that the Tenno had been re-established as part of the national government, it was time to once again use the combined power of politics and fine dining. With the government’s encouragement, national publications featured articles all about the emperor’s new adoption of domesticated meat in hopes that the public would follow suit and overcome their own deeply-held prejudice against meat consumption. It would be several decades more before the common people of Japan generally accepted domestic meat as part of their diet.
Domestic meat was hardly the only foreign food to make entry into Japan during the Meiji Period. Coffee began appearing in markets, as well as imported butter. However, these novelty imports failed to find any quick success, especially as most Japanese people preferred their usual mild green tea over dark, bitter coffee. Incidentally, the first coffee shop in Japan opened in 1888, but closed its doors permanently after five years due to bankruptcy. There was one beverage which quickly found not only popularity among consumers, but the eager embrace of domestic producers: Beer.
Although it had been brought to Japan in the 1600s by Dutch traders, beer had remained largely a novelty item only available to the Japanese who lived in and around Nagasaki. In 1869, a Norwegian-American named William Copeland founded the Spring Valley Brewery in Yokohama, which lies to the south of Tokyo. This operation was purchased by a Japanese firm and renamed “Kirin Brewery Company.” In Hokkaido in 1876, thanks to a generous development grant from the government, Seibei Nakagawa founded a brewing company which he named after the city where it was established: Sapporo. In 1889, the Osaka Beer Brewing Company was founded, which would, a few years afterward, be renamed “Asahi.” In 1899, a brewing company was founded which would later become “Suntory.”
While today most of the beer in Japan is brewed by Kirin, Sapporo, Asahi, and Suntory, who are known collectively as “the big four,” hundreds of breweries were founded during the Meiji Period and beer steadily grew in popularity, though it would be several decades yet before it surpassed sake as Japan’s alcoholic beverage of choice.
Another popular food item which traces its origin to the Meiji Period is Anpan, a sweet roll with red bean paste in its center. I found it surprising to learn that this lovely treat, which I enjoyed several times while living in Japan, was created by a former samurai named Kimura Yasubei who was searching for new employment in the early years of Meiji. He decided to try his hand at baking and, taking some inspiration from a Japanese sweet which involved mochi with red bean paste in its center, he opted to use sweet bread in place of the mochi and create a new novelty food. In 1874, flush with profits from his newfound passion, he founded a bakery in Tokyo’s Ginza district called Kimuraya.
In 1875, he caught a huge break when it became known that the emperor enjoyed his Anpan. That spring, it was arranged for him to make some of his famous sweet rolls for the emperor and empress to snack on while they engaged in traditional cherry blossom viewing. He made these Anpan with a special, seasonal accent, placing a salt-pickled cherry blossom on the top. The emperor enjoyed them so thoroughly that the imperial household kitchen regularly ordered them from Kimuraya. This imperial endorsement caused an explosion of business and the Kimuraya bakery still sits in the Ginza district in Tokyo, albeit with some modern upgrades to its storefront.
While domestic meat adoption remained fairly low throughout the early decades of the Meiji Period, it grew steadily regardless of social stigma. Now that Japan was open to foreign visitors, certain places saw the growth of meat-eating expatriates in significant enough numbers to cater to economically. The first of such restaurants sprang up in Yokohama during the Bakumatsu period but dense urban cities like Osaka and Tokyo likewise adapted to the influx of foreigners, especially as so many were recruited by the Japanese government to assist in modernization.
One of the earliest meat-based dishes attempted by restaurateurs to market to Japanese diners was Sukiyaki, a stew which includes some combination of eggs, tofu, vegetables, mushrooms, glass noodles, and thin slices of beef. It is believed to have originated in Kansai and it was, for a while, a well-known Japanese dish among foreign visitors.
However, what really jump-started Japan’s gradual acceptance and current enthusiasm for domesticated meat was the First Sino-Japanese War. Chefs in the Imperial Navy, under orders to find a way to serve meat to the sailors which would be acceptable to their palates, created a dish called Nikujaga, a slow-simmered stew of thinly-sliced meat, potatoes, carrots, seasoned with soy sauce, mirin, and dashi. By utilizing flavors familiar to traditional Japanese palates, these Navy chefs effectively created more demand for these dishes when the soldiers returned home.
Although adoption proceeded slowly, by the time of the outbreak of war with China in 1894 a significant number of Japanese people had incorporated beef into their diet. The wartime need meant domestic shortages, which led many consumers to turn to less popular sources of domesticated meat, especially pork. However, as any experienced chef will tell you, pork and beef are very different meats in terms of proper preparation, cook time, and technique. The beef-hungry populace thus adapted to cooking pork in different ways. Dishes like Ton-katsu, which is breaded, fried pork fillets, became more widespread as chefs in both homes and restaurants were forced to adapt to the beef shortages. When the shortages had ended, an increased demand for pork ensured that domestic meat of several varieties was now part of more and more Japanese citizens’ diets.
If you travel to Japan today, you will find plenty of options for your inner carnivore to enjoy. Beef, pork, chicken and more are found in practically every restaurant and grocery store. Japan is the third largest importer of U.S. beef. In terms of its actual consumption, it ranks ninth among the nations but is such a large import customer because land use in Japan remains at a premium and locally-raised livestock require a large amount of space which is more efficiently utilized for crop land. While the famous Wagyu beef cattle are cultivated in Japan, much of the rest of its limited arable land is used for plant-based agriculture.
Western Japan today, including the Kansai Region, tends to consume more beef while eastern Japan, including Chubu, tends toward pork. During my time teaching English in Japan, I lived in the Chubu region and enjoyed pork dinners on a regular basis. The specific area I lived in was well-known for a specialty dish called “Miso-Katsu,” which is breaded, fried pork with a special dark Miso sauce. It is one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten.
In terms of beef, while I enjoyed the usual shabu-shabu hotpot as well as the Yaki-niku, or Korean Barbecue style, one of my favorite beef dishes to order was Hamburg Steak. Hamburgers, of course, are a regular fixture of US cuisine, but in Japan it is still served like any other specialty steak - usually alongside some greens and mashed potatoes.
Next time, we will discuss some of the famous and infamous travelers who came to Japan during the Meiji Period and, in some cases, chose to make a permanent home there.