We might know in 10-20 years.

Chris
About historical aspect and getting ideas -- long ago in another short thread, someone got the idea to cook an IJN curry for his girlfriend. Although as Hisashi told earlier, the former IJN port cities are rivals for claim to recipes of the original Navy curry. Maybe also proprietary about recipes themselves?JKindred wrote: Alan,
I suppose I am one of the passers-by. I have very much enjoyed this thread not only for the historical aspect but also for gaining ideas in learning how to prepare Japanese food.
Books: The original search engine.
My thanks to you also, Christopher. I am not a hard-hitter on the Forum like you, so when the hard-hitter has some good word for a low-light, the latter is especially thankful.Christopher Perrien wrote:I will say, that this topic has the best chance of eventually defeating "Beheadings in the Reich" as being the longest/ best/obscure/stickie running topic on the forum. I had a "contender", on Pearl Harbor, but I got mad and lost it . . .
I agree. Moreover, there are some common tellings about IJA soldier life which:hisashi wrote:Thank you all for cheering. It is nice to have some 'soldier life' aspects in the forum, as military issues tend to deal with anything deadly.
This same is often noted about Japanese curry, that it is thicker than others. Japan’s S&B Golden Curry brand is an instant kind, now commonly available worldwide. I had supposed that being thicker made it mix better with rice servings. But according to S&B’s history of Japanese curry, this also came from its British model.hisashi wrote:. . . They say Japaneses began to produce Worcestershire sauce ('usta-sauce' in Japan) in 1880s. Several venturers, including soy sauce vendors, tried this new business.
By 1920s they became popular enough. For example, earlier version of okonomiyaki used usta sauce. As it was Japanized they invented thicker variants.
It is said that many younger Americans are less inclined to learn cooking skills, instead eating more ready-made foods and meals. This is also told of second-generation immigrants to America, whose parents did know how to cook. Maybe this happens in Japan too? Old and young generations begin to differ in their food seasonings, as well as how or what they eat.hisashi wrote:. . . And it is common that topping a little amount of Worcestershire sauce or its variants on curry rice, though less popular among youngsters.
Some basic sauces remain firm tastes within their countries, each of which may not know the others’ versions. Ketchup would be one of these. Mayonnaise might be another, where the Japanese kind is sweeter than the American one, but available in the US only as a specialty. On the other hand, wasabi sauces and mustards are well-known and popular here.hisashi wrote:Another seasoning from Western cuisine, more important for military life, was tomato ketchup.
I had imagined that freeze-dried nature of MREs (Meals Ready-to-Eat) worked less well for fried dishes, but there are some. Menus and probably technology have advanced since American MREs were first developed in the 1970s and issued in the 1980s. One current Singapore-based commercial MRE maker, mentioned earlier, has a wide range of dishes acceptable to Asian, Muslim, and Western customers (not only soldiers?)hisashi wrote: ’Chicken rice’ (pics) is a chicken pilaf/fried rice seasoned with tomato.. Omu-rice (pics) was a variant of omelette, stuffed with rice (often chicken rice) and topped by ketchup. Both cuisine were at least served for navy officers. I am not sure sailors enjoyed it . . . cooking huge amount of any of the two at once looks difficult.
. . . Today instead of ketchup some cookers use demiglace sauce.
Today American MRE includes chicken w/ rice. It seems boiled, rather than fried.
In her history of Modern Japanese Cuisine, Katarzyna Cwiertka gave a chapter to food as a part of rebuilding postwar Japan. Some dishes or ingredients on school lunch menus might not go together in other settings, where they would be strange.hisashi wrote:A strange ketchup cuisine in Japan is a 'Napolitan Spaghetti'. It is a boiled pasta sauteed with tomato ketchup, meat and vegetables. Typically they use sliced sausage and onion. It has nothing to do with Napoli. This dish was easy to cook at once in primary school kitchens and became popular in school lunch after the war.
A typical install of industrial refrigerator system was lager beer brewery. Sapporo Beer Co. has its origin in government-owned lager brewery in 1876.Peter H wrote:From ebay,seller sell446
Ice blocks?Was some form of basic refrigeration available to some?
Yes. But differently from curry or niku-jaga, ketchup became popular first among citizens and officers requested them. One of pioneers, the founder of Kagome, asked a chef of a hotel to have a bottle of imported tomato sauce.Sewer King wrote: Maybe Japanese ketchup followed the American model? Since it was used by the military, I would guess it accompanied the increase of meat served to their men.
This scene is especially interesting for showing what looks like a packaged meal, about the size of a modern bento box. We have not seen this one before, or read any possible description. Cardboard lids have been taken off but unfortunately for us, they are upside down and we can't see what might have been printed on them, if anything.Peter H wrote:From ebay,seller dixie_auctions: "1937 Japanese Soldiers Break for Meal in Tientsin, China"
Although these do look like ice blocks at first, I feel doubtful about it. Ice blocks of this size (say, 60x30x10cm) would be fairly heavy and not held up as casually as these look here. Also they would hurt the bare hands to hold, and can slip out of grasp. Normally they would be handled with tongs, hooks, gloves, sledges etc.Peter H wrote:From ebay,seller sell446: Ice blocks? Was some form of basic refrigeration available to some?
Ice-making was quite a job in its time because of its great weight, labor, and some organization for its transport, insulated housing, and distribution. Like the making of salt, this has passed from much popular memory. Whether ice was imported or not, it would seem just as hard a job before any wider use of electric refrigerators in Imperial Japan.Sewer KIng wrote:Ice was still a commodity in the rural US too, although in declining use up through this same time. The 19th century ice trade from the northern US had reached as far away as British India. Interesting that ice was still exported as far as Japan and this late. Maybe the demand for it must have been enough while the country was still being electrified?hisashi wrote:. . . Before refrigerator appeared in Japan ground ice with syrup/sugar/anko was tasted with ices from Hokkaido, or even imported from the U.S. but luxurious until refrigerator and ice grinder machine became common in 1930s or so.
We saw mention of ice blocks stored aboard IJA horse transport ships bound for the tropics. Mechanical ice plants were told for the IJN where they had been captured by the Americans, but there seems little mention of them for the IJA.
I imagine that at least some peacetime IJA garrisons had ice arrangements, however more the IJN stations had their own ice plants or not. As with white rice and more meat, would the military have had better than civilians in this too? Especially in Japan’s hot humid summers.
Though the photo is blurred, these mens' broad smiles show them in very good cheer. I think the wind is blowing well, as told by the flaps of their field caps, though it doesn't disturb their meal.Peter H wrote:From ebay,seller dimastyle: {Soldiers eating in the field)
For our many photos of mochitsuki so far, I could wish we knew more of the different years and places they were taken. Together, they would give a sort of continuity over time, like Christmas photos of American troops. But unlike those of Allies going on to victory, I think the New Years’ mochitsuki pics are mostly from before the Pacific War.Peter H wrote:Same seller: "China -- "mochi tsuki" rice cake fun time fun"
This sounds much like ice service in 19th-early 20th century America. For this, It sounds like Edo had better than other parts of Japan. Thomas Jefferson's Monticello has one of Virginia's best-known and designed underground icehouses of this kind. farmers might have a partly-underground springhouse, which had running springwater in it for cooling. Some would use shelves in the inside walls of their water wells as lesser “refrigerators.”hisashi wrote:. . . Even before Meiji Restoration, preserved ice (in underground space) was on sale in summer for Edo citizens. This type of business survived and in 1897 some ice dealer gathered to make ice by refrigerator. The leading figure among them, 和合英太郎 Wago Eitaro's company later became a part of Nichirei Co. Until electric refrigerator became reasonable and popular in 1960s, it was common for a family to have a box with a space for ice on its top, and ask a local ice dealer to deliver a huge ice cube.
Wasn't this said to be the origin of niku-jaga, where Admiral Togo Heihachiro asked for beef stew but his chef was unsure how to make it? This was part of the rivalry between the former IJN port cities over which of them originated the dishes.Sewer King wrote:Maybe Japanese ketchup followed the American model? Since it was used by the military, I would guess it accompanied the increase of meat served to their men.hisashi wrote:Yes. But differently from curry or niku-jaga, ketchup became popular first among citizens and officers requested them. One of pioneers, the founder of Kagome, asked a chef of a hotel to have a bottle of imported tomato sauce.
Thus, it seems likely that Kanie was one of them.hisashi wrote:. . . They say Japaneses began to produce Worcestershire sauce ('usta-sauce' in Japan) in 1880s. Several venturers, including soy sauce vendors, tried this new business.