1.1B – Youshoku: Eating for civilization & enlightenment

文明開化 (ぶんめいかいかん) = Civilization and enlightenment:
or Fear of Western domination and need for Western approval

Emperor Meiji and his Consort in the Plum Garden, by Kobayashi Kiyochika, Japan, 1887, woodblock print, Sackler Museum, Harvard University via Wikimedia Commons, 

 

1854 Commodore Matthew Perry and his fleet of 9 American ships were allowed to dock on Edo (Tokyo) Bay under threat of military force.

The Mission of Commodore Perry to Japan in 1854, painting on wooden box of Perry's second trip to Japan, source: Wikimedia Commons

1858 Bafuku (warrior government headed by the shogun residing in Edo/Tokyo) signed the unequal treaties of Five Nations – imposing a semi-colonial status on Japan, requiring Japanese ports accept Western residents and trade

The Mission of Commodore Perry to Japan in 1854, British Museum via Wikimedia Commons, painting, scroll by Hibata Ōsuke. Five Japanese negotiators entertain Perry and his men at a banquet.

Socio Political Context: Youshoku 洋食

The Meiji Restoration began in 1868 by political activists who attempted to rapidly Westernize to emulate the technological and military power of the West. They feared Japan’s fall to Western Imperialism and colonization and sought to elevate its status through adaptation to avoid confusion with China and Asia in Western eyes. The Five Nations participating in the treaty were the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, and then Netherlands. In following years, these privileges were extended to other European countries. 


Left: Commodore Perry, 1856-58 photo by Mathew Brady; right: Emperor Meiji, 1873 photo by Uchida Kuichi, Wikimedia Commons

Civilization and enlightenment, to improve Japan's public image in Western eyes, involved:

• Entertaining Westerners in Western-style dining and food.
• Accommodations for Western nationals with all of European trappings of furniture and utensils
• Having Japanese elites learn Western customs and manners from dress, to eating, and even urinating with an 1867 publication of Seiyou Ishokujuu, "Western Clothing, Food and Homes."
• Importing Western style vegetables and eventually establishing a domestic cattle industry

Pictured: Course author's kids entering to Edo Museum with Meiji Fashion Plates passing by

• Eventually, Western clothing 洋服、ようふく, youfuku, food and homes grew to be associated with elites and social prestige
• As did eating Western food 洋食、ようしょく, youshoku with French being served at more upscale establishments and British and American are more modest establishments.

Left to right: Gyuunabe 牛鍋、ぎゅうなべ (beef hotpot), チキンカレーライス (chicken curry rice), ドリア (doria, meat casserole with bechamel sauce over rice)

Further, a new government whose slogan was 富国強兵 fukoku kyouhei, or "rich country, strong army" sought to match the wealth and military might of European powers through the following:

• Legal and political reform: The emperor was "restored” to power with an Imperial Palace modeled on 19th C European constitutional monarchies
• Education: the Japanese population needed to be "moulded into loyal subject-citizens...through mass compulsory education and universal conscription" (Cwiertka 59). 
• Industrial capitalism: Establishing an industrialized economy from Western models of capitalism
• Promoting meat eating to bolster the physique of the Japanese population.
  • Meat had been taboo. Buddhist tradition associated it with needless bloodshed. 
  • 1872 Emperor Meiji publicizes eating beef and mutton regularly (portrait above around that time).
  • Meat had a tradition of being viewed as medicine; then came to be associated with nutrition and Western physiques
  • Ex: ぎゅうなべ、牛鍋 Beef stew (The same recipe was originally used to stew wild game, whose meat was okay to eat, because they were not domesticated animals.) 
  • French restaurants were exclusive; whereas, British and American were served at cheap, Western-style restaurants meat and fat with very little vegetables. The former were two ingredients not found in the Japanese diet; the latter mimicked Victorian British ideas that vegetables lacked nutrition. And Worcestershire sauce was seen at the British equivalent to soy sauce for the Japanese.
  • Meat eating in urban centers came to symbolize to a younger generation, a freer spirit, progress against an older hierarchical structure

Kobe Beef

Kobe beef was the result of demand from Westerners, primarily middle and upper class British and Americans settlers in Yokohama in the mid 19th century, a time when meat eating was still taboo in Japan. Their settlement was made possible by the 'unequal' treaties of 1858 that required Japan ports be opened for Western residence and trade.

Its association with Westerners in the Meiji Era gave meat eating prestige. The Meiji government further promoted this domestic cattle industry by associating Westerner's superior physique to what they considered lavish meat consumption. Further, Western scientific publications defined meat as "an ideal food essential for growth, health and strength" (Cwiertka 33). Under Western discourse of social Darwinism, meat was also the source for Westerner's intellectual and moral capacity.

Washoku