Tag Archives: Japan

Food and Drink, Global Exchange, Summer 2026

I Love Kewpie ♥️ Some Reflections on Mayonnaise in Postwar Japan

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By Motoko Lezec and Kana Jenkins

Tatsuta Maru, Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) Line. Credit: Björn Larsson Collection

At the University of Maryland’s Gordon W. Prange Collection, we are lucky enough to hold a set of souvenir dining menus served aboard trans-Pacific liners before World War II. These came to us as part of recently acquired additional materials from the Japan-America Student Conference (JASC), a non-profit educational and cultural exchange program for college students from the United States and Japan. With the beautifully designed menus as a starting point we will introduce several culinary publications from Japan’s Occupation era (1945-1952) focusing on one unlikely condiment: mayonnaise. 

First class dinner menu on the Tatsuta Maru, July 21, 1936. Credit: Japan-America Student Conference (JASC) archive,Gordon W. Prange Collection, University of Maryland Libraries.

Let’s take a close look at a menu (image) from July 21, 1936. The high speed luxury liner, owned by Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), is the Tatsuta Maru, which departed from San Francisco for Yokohama. Perusing this menu, as well as over a dozen others in the archive, what caught my attention was the salad course, always served right before the dessert course following Continental practice. 

The idea behind the salad greens, dressed simply with oil, vinegar and salt, was to aid digestion. Here, though, the chefs perhaps missed the mark in terms of providing a palate cleanser. Offerings include “California Heart of Lettuce” with ketchup and mayonnaise-based “Thousand Island Dressing” or a commemorative “Liberty” salad served on the Fourth of July . The  “Sayonara” menu, served on September 20, 1940 aboard the Kamakura Maru returning to the U.S.,  features a “Mimosa” salad served with mayonnaise dressing (mayo is also served with a cold course of split lobster).  I had to look up “My Lady” salad, which apparently belongs to a family of mayonnaise-based salads of East European origin, such as “Russian” salad involving boiled potato and carrot, onion, cucumber and cold meats.

These salads got me thinking about mayonnaise, classified by Escoffier as the French mother sauce of cold sauces. Its Japanese incarnation, Kewpie mayonnaise, created in 1925, is today a beloved condiment with near cult status. During the Pacific War however, production of Kewpie mayonnaise was halted due to supply shortages, and did not resume until 1948, three years into Japan’s Occupation.The Tatsuta Maru was requisitioned by the military and served as a transport vessel for troops until she was torpedoed by a U.S. submarine and sunk.  Kewpie’s comeback, on the other hand, can be seen in a newspaper ad that appeared in Nishinippon Shimbun on August 16, 1949. 

“Have some fresh salad”, newspaper advertisement for Kewpie in Nishinippon Shimbun in August 16,1949. Gordon W. Prange Collection, University of Maryland Libraries.

A number of publications in the Prange Collection provide a snapshot of the state of affairs around mayonnaise during this period.. The first, Akabori’s Cookery Book (1948) is by Akahori Senkichi, a pioneer in the popularization of Western cuisine in Japan. Before the war, Akabori was attached as chef to foreign embassies. Reflecting his fluency in English, the book is bilingual. In the author’s preface Akabori writes that after the war, despite his advanced age, he entered the employ of the family of a U.S. military commander in the Occupying Forces. In the forward, the Commander’s wife Delphine R. Suarez commends the recipes for being “proven and adaptable” and writes they will “prove most helpful in furthering the interest of worldwide cookery.”   

Akabori’s Cookery Book (1948) by Akabori Senkichi. Gordon W. Prange Collection, University of Maryland Libraries.

Akabori’s recipe for Mayonnaise Dressing is fairly classic; egg yolk, oil, salt, a touch of mustard, and a splash of vinegar. A pair of chopsticks is used to create the emulsion. He also included novelty versions such as Green Mayonnaise (with spinach) and Red Mayonnaise (with beet) for color variation when presenting hors d’oeuvres, speaking to the fact that a large part of his function was to create visually striking party menus for entertainment. What, then, was served for everyday meals?  What is Served in an American Family – Cooking Guide for Japanese Homemakers (1948) by Matsumoto Keiko offers this perspective. Matsumoto, known as the Japanese translator of Little Women and mysteries by Agatha Christie, writes in the bilingual preface that the recipes were collected while visiting the home of an American Occupation family and represent basic recipes for a family of four, substitutions encouraged. As such, a “slow” (slaw) dressing recommended for raw cabbage involves simply cooking together flour with milk and a beaten egg as a creamy vehicle for seasonings. 

How to eat imported food supplies (1947, author’s translated title).  Gordon W. Prange Collection, University of Maryland Libraries.

Both of these cookbooks were published in 1948, when Japan was in its third year of reconstruction after the devastations of war.   Food shortages were severe and despite thriving (though illegal) black markets, the spectre of starvation was real for much of the population. While the aforementioned cookery books have brightly colored, modern designs, other publications that came out just one or two years prior are printed on drab-colored paper of poor quality. How to eat imported food supplies (1947, author’s translated title), for example, published by the Hiroshima Prefecture Association for Funshoku, is a malnourished-looking pamphlet printed on yellowish brown paper. 

“Funshoku” refers to a diet based on processed grains as opposed to Japan’s traditional diet of whole grain rice. Included are suggestions and advice for how to get the most out of emergency relief supplies such as cornmeal, milo meal, soybean meal. Interestingly, in the “salad” section, a substitute mayonnaise recipe is given: cooking soybean meal in hot water to achieve a creamy consistency, before letting it cool and adding flavorings of salt & pepper, mustard powder and vinegar. This was to be mixed with whatever plants that could be found, including wild weeds. Delicious ways to eat wild grass, 1946, author’s translated title) gives a recipe for dandelion salad with aster leaves, dressed with oil, salt and a boiled egg.

But better times lay ahead. By 1948, Kewpie was back in business and magazines for housewives were full of cheery, child-pleasing recipes such as edamame suspended in gelatin, served with sliced cucumber and apple, store-bought mayo on the side. Nothing screams mid-century quite like a jello mold. Spreading to other parts of Asia and crossing back to America, we’re seeing a “boom” of Japanese-style “sando” – egg salad, potato salad, macaroni salad and the like, all slathered with Kewpie mayo, a non-negotiable ingredient, and sandwiched between slices of shokupan milk bread. The iconic cherub logo has certainly come a long way.

As curator of the Gordon W. Prange Collection at the University of Maryland Libraries, Kana Jenkins assists with research and course-integrated instruction focusing on the Allied Occupation of Japan. Kana is eager to showcase the newly acquired items in the Prange Collection.  

Motoko Lezec works as Collection Coordinator in the Gordon W. Prange Collection. She holds a BA degree in Political Science from International Christian University in Tokyo, and an MA in History of Art & Architecture from Harvard University. She has held curatorial positions at the USC Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, CA and the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art in Washington DC. While her research centers on modern and contemporary Japanese prints, she is an avid consumer of writings about food – history, memoirs, poetry– as well as its representations in art and film. Her food-related posts on the Prange blog include topics on bread and pastries. 

 

18th Century, Food and Drink, Posts, Series: Japanese Studies, Spring 2026

The “Silent Summary of Cooking” in Feudal Japan

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By Miguel Ángel Pelayo Prieto

In eighteenth-century feudal Japan, some of the most impressive culinary work was also the least visible. Court chefs prepared elaborate banquets for lords and shoguns, yet their names appear only in private records. Their expertise lived not in bustling restaurants or published books but in personal notes, oral instruction, and years of accumulated practice. The story of Funaki Den’nai (1685–1759) offers a rare window into that hidden world of personal recipes and the extensive research it entails.

Den’nai was the head chef of the Kaga Domain, a wealthy regional court on the Sea of Japan governed by the powerful Maeda clan. He came from modest origins, the son of a handyman in a vassal household, with only three years of cooking experience as a commis, appointed official cook at just twenty-two, apparently through direct recognition of his talent. He was recruited after an unsuccessful call for skilled chefs, the strict selection process having weeded out all other candidates. The importance the Maeda placed on their head chef stemmed from the clan using cooking as a tool to win over the central government, and from their lords having a special personal interest in the culinary arts and local food culture. The Maeda supported Dennai’s career over the following decades, working between the domains of Kanazawa Castle in Kaga and the Edo villa (modern Tokyo). He rose to become the principal administrator of the Maeda kitchens, a position prestigious enough to earn him a samurai title, making him one of the domain’s celebrated hōchō samurai, or “knife samurai.”

Fig. 1. Asano River in Kaga, near Kanazawa Castle. In Tabimiyage (Travel Souvenirs) by Kawase Hasui (1920). Image courtesy of Japan National Diet Library Digital Collections

What made Den’nai exceptional was not just his cooking but his compulsion to write everything down. He began keeping personal notebooks at thirty-four with a treatise on banquet cuisine and continued for the rest of his life: food taboos, medical combinations, Japanese and foreign recipes, current affairs, and opinions on the declining state of Japanese cooking. His masterwork was the nine-volume Ryōri Mugonshō (Silent Summary of Cooking), begun in 1727 and completed after his death by his son Yasunobu. It is the most comprehensive culinary encyclopedia of the Edo period (1600-1868).

The Silence of Ryōri Mugonshō meant that it was never meant for the public eye. It was a working document, a private archive compiled for the chefs who would succeed him, so that the knowledge that sustained Kaga’s reputation would live on. What Den’nai thought his successors needed to know about cooking went far beyond recipes. The work reads less like a cookbook and more like a natural history of food. Each entry on an ingredient records its regional names, sourcing locations, quality grades, preservation methods, seasonal variations, and medicinal uses. Sketches help identify easily confused plants and mushrooms. Historical notes trace an ingredient’s origins and regional food customs. That breadth reflects how Den’nai developed his expertise. He had three main sources: written texts (Chinese herbology, Japanese cookbooks, classical literature), informants (from farmers and fishermen to leading herbalists and doctors), and his own direct observation. The three years he spent as a chef in rural Kaga left traces throughout the encyclopedia: entries on acorns and horse chestnuts—foods too astringent and humble for any court menu— describe how mountain communities processed them, steeped and dried, then ground and mixed into rice cakes. Similar practices were recorded by ethnologists in remote Japanese villages in the early twentieth century, echoing the methods Den’nai had documented two hundred years earlier.

His attention to Kaga’s regional specialties is particularly remarkable, and in line with his lords’ gastro-political interests. He documents the famous winter sardines of Himi Bay in Kaga with the precision of someone who has sourced and cooked them. He notes with pride that Edo sardines are oilier and plainly inferior. Because Kaga’s fresh produce could not be easily brought elsewhere due to spoilage, Den’nai also records how his lords cultivated local plants at their Edo residence. For example, he talks about them growing a wild sweet-and-sour fruit vine called mube (Stauntonia hexaphylla), which was traditionally offered back in Kaga as tribute from a remote village on the Nōto peninsula. Food was crucial to regional diplomacy and to fending off nostalgia when away from home.

Fig. 2. Sardine Fishing Hut in Himi Bay, Etchu Province, Kaga Domain. In Tabimiyage (Travel Souvenirs) by Kawase Hasui (1920). Image courtesy of Japan National Diet Library Digital Collections

What the Ryōri Mugonshō preserves, in the end, is the full texture of how culinary knowledge moved in premodern Japan: through conversations with producers and merchants, through fieldwork and reading, through sourcing and experimentation. Den’nai’s personal collection was a working archive of messy and encyclopedic (yet professional) learning. Yet it only received public recognition 250 years after his death, when local historians unearthed and published some of his writings. Scholars today praise Ryōri Mugonshō for offering a nuanced, everyday view of premodern Japanese food, and Den’nai’s life even inspired the 2012 period drama Bushi no Kondate (A Samurai’s Menu). Ryōri Mugonshō is a reminder of how much knowledge can live in the unofficial record; that is what makes it feel genuinely alive.

 Sources and Recommended Literature

National Diet Library. “Ryōri Mugonshō [2].” Tokyo: National Diet Library Digital Collections, accessed December 21, 2025.

Nishimura, Shintarō. Kyūchū no Shefu, Tsuru o Sabaku: Edo Jidai no Chōtei to Hōchōdō. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2012.

Osawa, Yoshimi. “Ethnobotanical Review of Traditional Use of Wild Food Plants in Japan.” Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 20, no. 1 (2024): 100.

Pilcher, Jeffrey M. “Banquets Against Boredom: Towards Understanding (Samurai) Cuisine in Early Modern Japan.” In Food History: Critical and Primary Sources: Global Contact and Early Industrialization, edited by Jeffrey M. Pilcher and Eric C. Rath. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.

Rath, Eric C. Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.

Tō, Tomoko, and Watanuki, Toyoaki. Hōchō-zamurai Funaki Dennai: Kaga Hyakumangoku no Okakae Ryōrinin. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2013.

Watanuki, Toyoaki, ed. Kaga-han Ryōrinin Funaki Dennai Hensanchoshū. Toyama: Katsura Shobō, 2006.

Yoneda, Naofumi. Ryōri Mugonshō: Kaga-han Okakae Ryōrinin Funaki Dennai no Shokuzai Hyakka. Kanazawa: Noto Insatsu Shuppanbu, 2016.

Miguel Ángel Pelayo Prieto, a native of Zamora, Spain, is a PhD candidate in the Graduate School of Agriculture at Kyoto University. Miguel’s research focuses on the historical evolution of vanishing wild ingredients in Japanese cuisine from the Edo period to the present, as documented in recipes. He views cuisine as an expression of the relationship between humans and nature (ethnobiological knowledge), integrating historical and ethnological methodologies and emphasizing the reconstruction of the materiality of Japanese culinary culture. This approach aims not only to deepen our understanding of food history but also to revive lost culinary knowledge for use in contemporary cooking. As a former line cook and sous chef, Miguel puts that knowledge into practice through pop-up events.

Mail: mappfgh@gmail.com

Instagram: miguelap8 (personal)/ remapped.recipes (pop-ups)

 

 

19th Century History, Culinary History, Early Modern, Education, Food and Drink, Ingredients, Knowledge Transmission, Plants and Herbs, Students

One Hundred Delightful Tastes of Tofu: How Doable Was an Early Modern Japanese Recipe?

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By Sora (Skye) Osuka

Tofu Hyakuchin (豆腐百珍, One Hundred Delightful Tastes of Tofu Recipes), originally published in 1782, is often considered the first cookbook that only focuses on one ingredient and the beginning of the Hyakuchin-mono (百珍物, One Hundred Recipes of Delightful Tastes) series. Harada Nobuo, Eric Rath, and other historians of Japan have argued that cookbooks published during the Edo period were tools for vicarious consumption of cuisines that the reader could not physically obtain. However, when we carefully analyze the contents of cookbooks written in the Edo period (1603-1868), we are surprised that they are filled with the practical knowledge, the latest cooking techniques, ingredients, and utensils of that time. It was also during the Edo period, in which society formed the basis of Japanese cuisine that is still visible in the present day. The role of cookbooks like the Tofu Hyakuchin, not only as symbols of townspeople (chonin, 町人) culture and the culture of play (Asobi, 遊び) but also as a form of collective knowledge of the people who supported culinary culture during this time, cannot be underestimated.

This piece challenges the generalizing discourse surrounding cookbooks during the Edo period by first examining the popularity and accessibility of tofu as food from primary sources aimed for everyday people. Then it analyzes key aspects of Tofu Hyankuchin that separate this text from other cookbooks during this time, such as utensils, specific cut sizes, and measurements of ingredients to highlight the components that could be seen as “practical knowledge” rather than “vicarious consumption.”

Many believe that tofu was not consumed among ordinary people in the first half of the Edo period. In 1500, Shichijyu-ichi ban Shokunin Utaawase (七十一番職人歌合, Matching Songs of Seventy-one Craftsmen) was published. Tofu seller (豆腐売り) is mentioned as the 37th job . In the accompanying illustration, a lady in a black kimono and white headband sits cross-legged on a low platform on a street selling large and small pieces of cut tofu. The author of the painting is believed to be Tosa Mitsunobu (1434-1525). A total of 71 sections and 142 craftsman figures are displayed. In addition to the traditional craftsmen involved in the construction of temples and shrines, more low-ranking people such as female craftsmen, saleswoman, entertainers, and prostitutes who are not directly involved in material or agricultural production, are also included. Through the Shichijyu-ichi ban Shokunin Utaawase, it can be assumed that tofu seller was one of the recognized occupations and tofu was available in the later Muromachi Period (1336-1573).

Shichijyu-ichi ban Shokunin Utaawase [七十一番職人歌合], Tofu seller [豆腐売り] is mentioned at the 37th job, along with Somen (wheat noodle) Seller [御そうめん売り]. Published in 1500. (https://kotenseki.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100098001/viewer/1)

In the Kansei period (1789-1801) or the early 1800s, ranking tables (banzuke) became popular in Edo. Tofu cooking is mentioned in the Nichiyo Kenyaku Ryori Shikata Kakuryoku Banzuke (日用倹約料理仕方角力番付, Daily Frugal Cooking Method Competitive Ranking Table) which is in the same format as a sumo tournament flier. According to the table, there are two sides: Vegetable and Fish. The highest rank is Ozeki (大関). Under the Vegetable side, the Happai Tofu (八杯豆腐, Eight Cups Tofu) is ranked to Ozeki. Yaki Tofu (焼豆腐, Grilled Tofu) is ranked in the fourth rank of Sekiwake (関脇). Kinome Dengaku (木芽田楽, Baked Tofu with Sansho Tree-Sprout Miso Coating) is ranked in the fifth rank of Maegashira (前頭) in the spring section. Tofu related cuisines appeared a total of 15 times on the table.

Nichiyo Kenyaku Ryori Shikata Kakuryoku Banzuke日用倹約料理仕方角力番付, Published by Yoshida-ya Shoukichi Shuppan. Early 1880. Edo-Tokyo Museum.

Besides popular culture mentions of tofu, we can also see the prevalence of soy itself through Edo period edicts. Tokugawa Iemitsu issued the Keian Ofuregaki (慶安御触書, Keian Edict) in 1649 for the control of farmers. The edict consists of 32 articles, which warn of luxury life by peasants, such as alcohol, tobacco, and rice. The edict also demands people to devote themselves to agriculture. In the fourth edict, soybean planting is mentioned in the form of so-called aze-mame (畔豆, ridge beans), in which soybeans are planted in the ridges of rice paddy fields. It states that peasants must plant soybeans and azuki beans between their rice fields and farms. It is interesting to note the contemporary understanding of legumes’ ability to reincorporate nitrogen back into the soil. Although the people of Edo knew no such knowledge, legume planting may have helped farmers overall crop yield and efficient use of land. As the 4th edict decreed:

“Focus on cultivation, and planting to rice fields and vegetable fields, and at the same time, focus on production and prevent weeds from growing. If you take care of weeds and always cultivate the land with a hoe, you can get good crops and a lot of harvest. Then, plant soybeans and azuki beans on the bank in the fields to increase the crop as much as possible” (Keian Ofuregaki).

In the 11th edict, it stated that after experiencing famine, peasants must eat soybean leaves, which was also mentioned in the Ryori Monogatari [料理物語, Tale of Cooking], perhaps the most prominent early cookbook in Edo Japan. From the context of the 11th edict, the peasants had rice in the autumn, but in the later months, they had millet. The Tale of Cooking is written to support the peasant’s menu:

“The peasants are not thinking well, and they have no idea about the future. In the autumn, they feed rice to their wives and children without thinking about the harvested rice. Always in January, February, and March, they take care of rice and eat millet, wheat, Awa millet, Hie millet, vegetables, radishes, and make more millets, and do not eat a lot of rice. Immediately after experiencing a famine, do not waste time throwing away soybean leaves, azuki leaves, cowpea leaves, deciduous leaves of potatoes, etc.” (Tales of Cooking).

Around 1695, tofu was sold by vendors sitting by the road. We do not know for sure when tofu was first sold by walking street vendors, but after a big fire in Edo in 1698, sellers of dengaku (skewered grilled tofu with a sweet miso topping) started to appear.

In 1634, the Tale of Cooking was published. This was during the early part of Edo and is often considered the first Japanese cookbook written mostly in plain, syllabic Japanese. Although the author is unknown, the epilogue states that “This one volume of this cooking book does not require knife skills. This is for ordinary people and there are no cooking rules. This teaching is from our ancestors. Since I wrote the story of people to date, it is called the tale of cooking.” As for tofu related recipes, there are only two mentioned in the Ryori Monogatari in section 12 on boiled foods: Ise Tofu (伊勢豆腐) and Ryori Tofu (料理豆腐):

“Ise tofu: First grate yam. Cut the sea bream and grate it. Add one-third of grated yam. Add the egg white into tofu and grate it. Grate them well together. Spread a cloth on a cedar box and wrap it. Put it in hot water, press it, and then cut it. Spread cloth on the cedar box. Put it into boiled water, hold, and cut. Serve with arrowroot and soy sauce. It is also very good to sprinkle with chicken miso or wasabi miso. Also, it is good to serve only the tofu. I sincerely report the above recipe” (Tales of Cooking, 183).

If we take a closer look at the recipes, we see that there is little to no information about measurements, sizes, or utensils that are required to actually prepare these dishes.

A distinct feature of the Tofu Hyakuchin that shows that the book was not strictly for the purpose of play are the detailed cut sizes, measurements, and cooking utensils, potentially allowing readers to follow and recreate the dish. For instructions of cutting Tofu in the 72nd recipe, it instructs readers to “remove the coarse cloth texture from the surface of a whole tofu and cut off the four corners of the tofu, then cut the newly formed corners to make an octagon. Cut that into five or six smaller pieces. Season using sake, salt, and soy sauce” (Tofu Hyakuchin, 28). Another example is in the 96th recipe, readers are asked to “cut tofu in 2.4cm x 2.4cm x1.2-1.5cm cubes. On one skewer, place three pieces. Follow recipe number two (Kiji-yaki dengaku), grill until golden brown. Once it is grilled, remove them from the skewer. Place them in a Raku-ware teapot with a lid. Pour on hot pepper-vinegar-miso and sprinkle poppy seeds on top” (35).

Other detailed measurements are also explained in the 56th recipe, for example, “mix grilled tofu and Fukusa miso in a 7:3 ratio. Pound the mixture with a kitchen knife until it is one solid piece. Make into desired size, and lightly fry them. Season to desired choice”(24).  In the 81st recipe, furthermore, “use silken tofu. Boil six parts water to one-part sake. Once it is boiling add one-part soy sauce and let it reach a boil again. Place tofu into the mixture. The length of simmering is the same as number 92 of Yu-yakko. Remove the tofu right before it starts to float. Serve with grated daikon radish” (31). The recipes in Tofu Hyakuchin are in simple, syllabic writing and basic characters, with detailed measurements, and are easy for the reader to understand the method of cooking. In addition, it is easy to visualize the dish just by reading the instructions.

Introducing New Cooking Utensils

In one Tofu Hyakuchin recipe, it shows a new innovation: a charcoal stove specifically for making Kinome-Dengaku in the first tofu recipe. To proliferate varieties of cooking, it is essential to develop and invent new cooking tools. In the book, a new baking charcoal stove is introduced made of ceramic, which allowed for portability and better heat transfer than previous grills, as well as accessibility to a wider audience than traditional metal or steel grills. “Recently,” the book notes, “a new product was released for grilling miso dengaku (skewered tofu with miso sauce). About 60 cm in length; The width is about 8 cm; About 6 cm deep. This is made of pottery and has a hole in the bottom. There are many 1.8 cm holes (12).

Newly invented charcoal brazier for dengaku. In Tofu Hyakuchin [豆腐百珍, One Hundred Delightful Tastes of Tofu Recipes]. National Diet Library. (https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/2536494)

There are also many cooking utensils made of metal introduced in the Tofu Haykuchin. We can assume that hardware stores were popular in the Edo period and selling metal products allowed more access for people to cook food at a higher temperature. For example, in the 40th recipe, a wire mesh (金の籠, Kane no amikago) is introduced:

“Simmer light-soy sauce with sake and salt. In a separate pan, bring a large amount of oil to a boil. Cut tofu into flat cubes and place them on a wire mesh. Fry the tofu by shaking it 2-3 times inside the oil. Once fried, immediately place the fried tofu in the pot of simmering soy sauce”(21). 

The 54th recipe also uses a sieve made of metal: “To make the mashed potato, boil mountain yam very well. Remove excess water and sift through a metal sieve (銅飾, Kanasuhinou)” (24). Moreover, in the 57th recipe, a metal spoon (金匕, Kanesaji) is used to “simmer whole tofu in a pot with no liquid over small heat. Remove the liquid that comes out of the tofu with a metal ladle”(25). 

The recipe book also mentions a specially shaped long wooden box (つきだし, tsukidashi) in the 100th tofu recipe, which has about the same cross section as that of a block of tofu, with a handle on one end, a screen over the opposite exit end, and a wooden pusher, which is used to push a block of tofu into the box and through the screen, thereby creating tofu noodles.

“To cut the tofu, use the tube used to make tokoroten [gelatin jelly strips]. Use silk string to make grids on the end of the tube. Point the tube directly into lukewarm water. Push the tofu through the tube to make a noodle-like shape. Let the tofu submerge in water as you push it through. Even when serving 100 people, it is important to cut the tofu immediately before serving”(37-38). 

Examining the contents of the Tofu Hyakuchin, this cookbook was not just a hobby of a cultured person, but all recipes are easy to make, delicious, and still seen today. It introduced detailed cut size and specific measurements of ingredients. It also introduced cooking methods such as frying, steaming, and boiling that could be easily done with the new invention of high-heat cooking utensils. From the other popular culture materials and Tokugawa edicts regarding the development of soybean production, we can see the possible accessibility of tofu. This paper is not to discredit previous scholars on this subject, whom I greatly respect, but to complicate our understanding and analysis of Edo period cookbooks.

Notes

1 For the full text of Keian Ofuregaki, see: (http://sybrma.sakura.ne.jp/329keiannoohuregaki.html).

2 Recently, the Kenan Ofuregaki is considered forged document issued by the Edo Shogunate in 1649. It is believed that first issued in the territory of the Kofu domain in Kai Province in 1697, with the addition of a tradition that it is a curtain law of the Keian era. See, Yamamoto Eiji. Kenan no Furegagi wa dasaretaka (慶安の触書はだされたか). Tokyo: Yamakawa-shuppan, 2002.

 

Culinary History, Experimentation, Food and Drink, Modern, Posts, Tools and Techniques

Say Ohm: Japanese Electric Bread and the Joy of Panko

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By Nathan Hopson

In 1998, the New York Times introduced readers to an exotic new ingredient described as “a light, airy variety [of breadcrumb] worlds away from the acrid, herb-flecked, additive-laden bread crumbs in the supermarket,” with a texture “more like crushed cornflakes or potato chips” than its plebeian brethren (Fabricant 1998). That ingredient was panko, which has since become a staple for American home and professional cooks alike. In 2007, panko accounted for only 3% of US breadcrumb sales, for instance. Five years later, one in six American households regularly stocked panko in the pantry. Panko caught on because it is crunchier (and stays crunchy under restaurant heat lamps), absorbs less oil, and adds more volume than traditional breadcrumbs (Nassauer 2013).

Why are these Japanese breadcrumbs different? How did they get to be that way? The story told by American manufacturers such as LA-based Upper Crust Enterprises―an ironic name given that the secret to panko is crust-free bread―is that “Japanese soldiers during World War II discovered [that] crustless bread made for better breadcrumbs as they cooked it with electricity from tank batteries, not wanting to draw the enemy’s attention with smoke from a fire”(Nassauer 2013). Upper Crust’s president, Gary Kawaguchi, affirmed this account in a recent interview.

This is a cool story. Turns out, the truth is just as cool.

Japanese inventors had tinkered with electric cooking prototypes since at least the 1920s. Then in 1933, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) commissioned a “field kitchen that can prepare both rice and bread”(Aoki 2019, 11). Cost was no object and time was of the essence. As Katarzyna Cwiertka has noted, the military generally advocated bread, but there was a special urgency in light of the logistical difficulties of supplying rice to new front lines in Siberia and Manchuria. In 1937, paymaster captain Akutsu Shōzō’s design became the “Type 97” field kitchen, first deployed with the IJA’s First Independent Mixed Brigade that year (Uchida 2020, 2–4). The 97’s cooker was an insulated wooden box with electrode plates attached to the base and four sides of the interior. The highly efficient cooking process Akutsu used goes by several names, including ohmic and Joule heating. It is a form of electroconductive heating that passes electric current through foods to heat them rapidly and uniformly, quickly producing a light, yeasty, crust-free bread.

Figure 1: Type 97 field kitchen interior structure. Courtesy of JACAR.

After the war, companies such as Sony began selling rice cookers and bread machines that adapted these wartime technologies, and DIY home bread makers were showcased in magazines and newspapers. Influential women’s magazine Shufu no tomo and the inaugural issue of boys’ DIY magazine Shōnen kōsaku both featured instructions for bread makers derived from Akutsu’s design in 1946, reflecting the popularity of electric power in light of consumer fuel shortages and, conversely, excess generating capacity with military factories shut down (Uchida and Aoki 2019, 484).

In the 1960s, the new postwar frozen food industry hungered for high-quality breadcrumbs. Wheat had poured into Japan after 1945, the result of food aid; the use of bread and other wheat products in Japan’s school lunch program; and endless marketing promotions. Although ambitious American visions to recenter the national diet on wheat were soon abandoned, US agricultural imports and food technologies remained critical to Japan’s changing postwar food systems. Improved and upscaled food processing equipment met a market awash in cheap wheat, enthusiastic consumers (about half of whom owned electric refrigerators by the mid-1960s), and improved logistics. Frozen foods were among the shiny new things of postwar Japan’s shiny new “bright life,” and the mass use of frozen foods to cater the 1964 Olympiad and 1970 World’s Fair made them even more attractive symbols of Japan reborn.

These factors spurred rapid growth in breadcrumb demand, which was met in large part by the industrial-scale use of ohmic heating to create “electric breads” that were airy and uniform, and fried up crisply and uniformly when made into panko (Uchida and Aoki 2019, 485).

Sources Cited

Aoki Takashi. 2019. “Denkyokushiki chōri no hatsumei kara panko e tsuzuku rekishi oyobi saigen jikken.” Science Journal of Kanagawa University, no. 30 (June): 9–16.

Fabricant, Florence. 1998. “From Japan, the Secret of Crunchy Coating.” New York Times, December 1998.

Nassauer, Sarah. 2013. “Panko Tries to Find a Place in Every Pantry.” Dow Jones Institutional News, March 7, 2013.

Uchida Takashi. 2020. “Suihan o kigen to shi panko seizō ni tsuzuku denki pan no rekishi (1): Rikugun suiji jidōsha to Kōseishiki denki suihanki to Takara ohachi.” Tōkyō Yakka Daigaku kenkyū kiyō, no. 23 (March): 1–14.

Uchida Takashi, and Aoki Takashi. 2019. “Suihan, denki pan, pan seizō ni itaru Nihon no denkyokushiki chōri no rekishi: Rikugun ‘suiji jidōsha’ o kigen to suru denki pan jikken.” Nihon Yakugaku Kyōiku Gakkai ronbunshū, no. 43: 483–86.

This post is part five in an ongoing series by Hopson on the history of nutrition in modern Japan. You can read his previous post here.