Food rations in the Japanese forces

Discussions on all aspects of the Japanese Empire, from the capture of Taiwan until the end of the Second World War.
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Peter H
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#196

Post by Peter H » 15 Jun 2009, 12:25

Beets?
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#197

Post by Peter H » 15 Jun 2009, 12:32

More harvesting...
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#198

Post by Peter H » 15 Jun 2009, 12:40

Street vendors--kids.
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#199

Post by Peter H » 15 Jun 2009, 12:50

Fishing
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#200

Post by Peter H » 16 Jun 2009, 09:31

Posing for camera
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Peter H
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#201

Post by Peter H » 16 Jun 2009, 09:38

Snow
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#202

Post by Peter H » 17 Jun 2009, 08:43

Cooking
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#203

Post by Peter H » 17 Jun 2009, 08:46

China:catching eels?
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#204

Post by Peter H » 17 Jun 2009, 08:47

"Catch of the day"
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#205

Post by Peter H » 18 Jun 2009, 03:09

Mealtime 1904.

From ebay,seller daymaker1.
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Pax Melmacia
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#206

Post by Pax Melmacia » 18 Jun 2009, 08:14

Beets?
Not really. Those are a kind of turnip. Those into Mexican food will recognize them as jicamas. They taste a bit like bamboo shoots (if bamboo shoots can be said to have a taste . . .)

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Sewer King
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#207

Post by Sewer King » 20 Jun 2009, 20:12

Pax, I suspected those photos were taken in the Philippines. The carabao was a small hint.

=============================
Peter H wrote:Here’s a series of photos on kiln cooking.
  • First, wood is sourced,cut.
Actually, light machine gunner takes up position first :D
Peter H wrote:
  • Wood into kiln, all fired up.
These look elaborate and semi-permanent, more than a bivouac area would seem to need. If used for cooking – as ovens? -- they would at least serve well in a windy area.

=========================
Peter H wrote:NLF "Iron Chefs" (Ryōri no Tetsujin)
An entire squad of landing force sailors at work at this chopping table. But they are doing so wearing full infantry equipment, steel helmets, and pistol holsters, suggesting another posed shot.

They also seem to have white cloths tied round under their helmets.

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Peter H wrote:Army kitchen 1932
The boilers here resemble the sheet-iron ones used during the 1904 war (shown here earlier). Those were described earlier as made of segments that could be disassembled and nested inside each other for pack transport, along with the kettles that fit atop them.

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Peter H wrote:Mealtime
A great many inscriptions on the vests. If personal, would some of them be the same kind of sentiments as written on yosegaki?

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Peter H wrote:Rice stockpile
Image
Henry Sakaida’s The Siege of Rabaul mentioned 8,000 tons of rice stockpiled there at one time, That was the displacement of a navy light cruiser, an amount I found hard to imagine at first, even though it had to be dispersed for protection from air attack. But now I can picture it.

Might this be the army’s Central Provisions Depot near Tokyo, or one of its many branches elsewhere?

The great stockpile shown here is in the open air, so the place would seem to be far from enemy range and the rice kept in weatherproof bags. Estimating how much rice is in sight here would be a matter of academic curiosity, assuming 50kg bags or some other standard measure. But 50kg is a great weight of rice for one man to shoulder, especially if he climbs the irregular staircase of the stockpile itself. Vermin would also seem to be a problem for open-air storage.

==========================

From Cwiertka cited earlier, pages 79-82 including photo:

Here is a little soy sauce to go with that rice.
Image
Soy sauce supply for the troops, c. 1937

Soy sauce was very extensively used in the military. Following the established patter of the urban pre-modern diet, it functioned as an all-purpose flavouring in army and navy kitchens. Like rice, soy sauce constituted the daily component of meals in urban and elite households, but was more sparingly used in rural areas. Unlike rice, the taste of soy sauce in pre-modern Japan showed a considerable regional variation. By the eighteenth century the best-quality soy sauce was produced by commercial brewers clustered in large cities, in particular Edo, while the rural population relied overwhelmingly on home-made soybean paste (miso) for flavouring. The use of soy sauce by most farm households, which were largely self-sufficient in food, was restricted to special occasions such as funerals and weddings. They purchased soy sauce from local brewers, since only wealthy farmers could afford to brew any sauce at home. The situation was different in central Japan (Aichi, Mie, and Gifu prefectures), where so-called tamari shoyu -- much less complex to manufacture and different in taste from the conventional soy sauce consumed in cities -- was brewed in many households.

Throughout the twentieth century, owing to urbanization, rising standards of living and a shift toward industrialized mass manufacture, not only did soy sauce become the dominant flavouring for the ever increasing number of Japanese, but its taste was becoming increasingly standardized. This was due to the modernization of production, which came to rely more and more on chemical knowledge and machinery rather than centuries-old know-how and experience among regional brewers … hundreds of local varieties were gradually replaced by national brands … The soy sauce case illustrates perfectly the increasingly homogenizing effect of industrially processed food on taste preferences of the Japanese population throughout the twentieth century.
The author’s last point has comparisons elsewhere in the modern world, in America especially.

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Peter H wrote:Homefront:
...Rising Sun lunches, so called because of their resemblance to the Japanese national flag. The meal consisted of a pickled red plum set in a field of white rice..
From Cwiertka (page 117-118), this looks like one in its wrapper. Is it?
Image
…the patriotic symbolism of the ‘Rising Sun Lunch Box’ (Hinomaru bento), consisting of plain boiled rice and plum pickle (umeboshi) placed in the centre of a rectangular lunch box, which together resembled the Japanese flag … [Its origin] is attributed to an initiative of 1937 in a girls’ school in the Hiroshima prefecture, where this patriotic lunch box was consumed by pupils each Monday as a token of solidarity with the troops fighting in China. By 1939 the idea was adopted by schools all over the country, and during subsequent years the ‘flag lunch’ rose to the symbol of wartime mobilization and national unity. However, the daily reality of the majority of the population stood in sharp contrast to this image, if only because after 1941 plan boiled rice became a luxurious item on the menu. Since the summer of 1940 the authorities had prohibited Tokyo restaurants from serving rice dishes.
Earlier, hisashi pointed out that umeboshi inside soldiers’ rice balls served as a short-term preservative as well as flavour.

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Peter H wrote:Cooking
The smiling soldier in foreground seems to be grating a root vegetable (radish?) from the tray into a mess kit.

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Peter H wrote:Posing for camera
These soldiers may have had a good laugh about “eating in formation” from mess kits for the pose. In front of the seated man is what looks like a rectangular, insulated food carrier with wire handle.

=========================
Peter H wrote:China:catching eels?
A uniformed photographer at left, to judge from his jacket and armband, and caught on this photo by a possible colleague.

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Peter H wrote:Mealtime 1904
Another interesting group pose for the variety of soldiers drinking from canteens or cup, eating with chopsticks or hands -– although no mess kits are in sight -- and smoking a cigarette.

Good photo of the dark blue service uniform and cap from those victorious days. Does the shoulder strap’s unit number read 28 or 38?

-- Alan

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Peter H
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#208

Post by Peter H » 21 Jun 2009, 01:15

Alan,

Hard to say which regiment.I take it as the 38th.

I think it was part of the 16th Division in 1905:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJA_16th_Division
The 16th Division was one of the four divisions raised in the closing stages of the Russo-Japanese War. With Japan's resources strained to the breaking point towards the end of that conflict, the entire force of the Imperial Japanese Army was committed to combat in Manchuria, leaving not a single division left to guard the Japanese main islands in case of attack. The 16th division was raised from men in the Kyoto area and immediately dispatched to Manchuria. However, the Treaty of Portsmouth was concluded before it could see combat, and remained in Manchuria as a garrison force.
Meanwhile the 28th Infantry Regiment (Asahikawa) was with the 7th Division.
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Peter H
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#209

Post by Peter H » 21 Jun 2009, 01:33

The rice stockpile photo was taken in China.

Here's another photo showing what I think is captured Chinese rice holdings.
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Peter H
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Re: Food rations in the Japanese forces

#210

Post by Peter H » 21 Jun 2009, 01:38

Interesting photo here as well.Looks like a collection point for seized foodstocks.
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