"Eating" after the war

"eat drink man woman, human's greatest desire is existence", and history is created by one person. People in the world must first meet the basic needs of human survival, such as food, clothing, housing and transportation, so that they can spare no effort to create science and culture and change the world. Food, clothing, housing and transportation itself is a part of history.

Speaking of eating in Japan, many people may think of sushi, sashimi and tempura, and walk into a Japanese restaurant and order the same thing. This seems to give people an illusion-that is what ordinary Japanese eat at home every day. In fact, sushi and sashimi actually test the skills of chefs. Of course, ordinary Japanese rarely have the leisure and skills to do such things at home. After the war, on the basis of tradition, Japanese people are more and more inclined to eat conveniently.

The famine in the early postwar period is hard for almost every Japanese to forget after this stage. 1945, when the war ended, Japan's harvest failed and the harvest fell by 40%. However, urban residents who evacuated from rural areas during the war returned to cities one after another after the war, together with about 5 million soldiers, expatriates and members of the pioneering group who returned from overseas, the city was instantly crowded with hungry people of various identities, and a famine spread rapidly. Ordinary urban residents can only live on rationing and the black market. In fact, there are not many rations that are "often late". According to records, a family of two can get 15 kg of rice and 4.5 kg of flour in March 1946, which is 19.5 kg in total. In May, it was reduced to 6 kg of rice, 2 kg of corn, 8.5 kg of bread and 0.5 kg of wheat 18 kg in total. In June, it became 1 kg of rice, 0.5 kg of wheat and 1 kg of flour; This is already a state of starvation. Many Japanese citizens have two meals in the morning and evening, that is, "miscellaneous cooking"-some vegetables are cooked into sparse porridge, rice porridge and noodle soup are also common, and some corn flour is often mixed in it, so lunch is often omitted. Of course, the most painful thing is that the supply of miso is cut off. For a long time, miso, a condiment made by soybean fermentation, has become an indispensable part of Japanese diet. It is the habit of many Japanese to drink a bowl of miso soup in the morning. After the war, due to the return of Manchuria, the main soybean producing area, to China, the supply of Japanese miso dropped sharply, and drinking a bowl of miso soup every day once became a luxury.

In contrast, the students in the school are much better. At that time, there was a surplus of milk in the United States, and a large amount of milk was made into skim milk powder and put in the warehouse. In the early postwar period, Japan became the best place for these "unpalatable" skimmed milk powders. At the same time, a large number of imported American flour is also made into bread for students to eat. As a result, the western-style eating method of bread and milk became the meal of many schools in Japan in the early post-war period. After the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, free aid became paid supply, and Japan had to pay 490 million yuan to the United States to maintain school meals. Subsequently, due to poor reputation and the adjustment of supply and demand in the United States, skim milk powder disappeared from Japanese school meals. However, a whole generation in Japan has been cultivated into the habit of drinking milk, and many westernized diets have begun to enter Japanese daily life.

Bread is the most popular western food. 1From October 20th to 25th, 1953+65438, Takashimaya Store in Nanpu, Osaka held the exhibition "School Feeding, Improving Eating Life" to publicize the benefits of eating bread and appeal to people to switch from rice to bread. This is of course a biased statement, but it has made bread quickly popular all over the country. At 1953, Toshiba introduced a home toaster, which cost 900 yen and immediately became a hot-selling product. By the 1970s, it was very common for Japanese families to get up in the morning and bake two pieces of bread, and then spread butter or cream for breakfast.

Another popular western food in schools is curry. Before the war, Curry was a naval patent. In the old Japanese navy, the British navy's habit of eating curry was introduced, and after Japanese improvement, Japanese curry rice was formed. 1948, stewed curry was served on the school table and immediately became a very popular food in school meals. 1950, a company developed a solid curry seasoning, which made it possible to popularize curry rice. At 1963, House company improved it according to Japanese tastes, and added apple juice, honey and other formulas to form a softer curry product, namely the famous "Baiwei MUBI Curry", which became an instant hit. 1968, Otsuka Company created soft-package curry food, which was packaged with special topping for curry rice. Soon, many food companies followed suit. Consumers only need to buy a soft topping, put onions, potatoes, chicken, beef and other ingredients in it, cook a rice at home, cover half of the rice with the topping, and make a delicious and colorful curry rice. "Let's eat curry rice today" has become the mantra of many Japanese housewives.

After entering the school for dinner, macaroni was once vomited by students as "the school invited us to eat soap". But later, this kind of "perforated udon noodles" became popular. Especially in the late 1960s, a group of Japanese returning from Europe opened a large number of French and Italian restaurants. Macaroni, pasta and other European dishes are all the rage, and many Japanese are willing to walk into western restaurants with thoughtful service and elegant environment. Entering western restaurants has become a common occurrence in the lives of many Japanese people with relatively rich incomes. The popularity of Japanese dramas "Cooking Fresh People" and "Dinner" has made Japanese western restaurants a hot topic. Interestingly, western-style bread and macaroni inadvertently put pressure on traditional Japanese noodles. Because both bread and noodles use flour, the popularity of bread will naturally squeeze the noodle market, so noodles have to change themselves. Many schools provide milk as a meal, and it is difficult to incorporate traditional noodle soup into school meals. So the ingenious Japanese canceled the hot noodle soup and invented cold noodles-noodles dipped in sauce. From 65438 to 0965, cold noodles were introduced to schools in Tokyo, and immediately became popular in society and spread throughout the country.

In addition, coffee and cola also entered Japanese life after the war. 1In April 1956, instant coffee was allowed to be imported into Japan. Soon,1August 1960, the old food company Morinaga produced 36 grams of instant coffee. In order to compete with it, General Foods immediately launched Macmillan Coffee in February 19, and entered the Japanese market together with Nestle Coffee. The wave of drinking coffee began to attack office workers. Coca-Cola entered the Japanese market as early as before the war, but its business was bleak. 196 1, quickly became a brand by advertising. While cola, coffee, milk and other beverages appeared, vending machines also came into being. Vending machines in Japan appeared very early. 1888, a man named Tanya Takashi invented the tobacco vending machine, which is considered to be the earliest vending machine in Japan. But it was not popularized on a large scale until after the war. 1958 in may, a wine vending machine appeared in the hotel in Xinqiao, Tokyo. 1965 65438+In February, after Coca-Cola appeared in cans, the spring of vending machines came. 1970, the number of vending machines in Japan exceeded 1 10,000, 1984, and it has reached 5140,000, making it the country that uses vending machines the most in the world. In 2000, the number of vending machines reached its peak-5.6 million, with annual sales reaching 7 trillion yuan. Besides drinks, you can also buy wine, cigarettes, chewing gum and even Haagen-Dazs ice cream in the vending machine. Drinks are also hot and cold, which can identify both coins and banknotes. During the trip to Japan, everyone deeply felt the ubiquitous convenience of vending machines-whether you are in downtown or at a scenic spot, thirsty or hot, you can find vending machines within a few steps.

The popularity of western-style diet can make many Japanese people finish the task of "eating" more conveniently and quickly, which undoubtedly meets the inevitable demand of accelerating the pace of social life during the period of rapid economic development after the war. The product that had the greatest influence on Japanese diet after the war was refrigerator. As early as 1930, refrigerators were made in China by Zhipu Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (now Toshiba), but in the early postwar period, refrigerators were still high-end products that ordinary people could not reach. 1955, the average salary of a new college graduate was 1.0 1.8 million yuan, while the price of a refrigerator was 50,000-60,000 yuan. Ice refrigerator-a kind of "refrigerator" that puts ice cubes in wooden boxes to temporarily store food every day has become a substitute, but only shops and wealthy families who can afford ice cubes will use it. Since the mid-1950s, refrigerator manufacturers began to publicize the benefits of popularizing refrigerators in the United States, catering to people's yearning for American life at that time. Soon, the refrigerator was listed as one of the "three great artifacts". With the increase of national income in 1960s and the continuous improvement of refrigerator itself (increased capacity, built-in partitions, sliding doors and magnetic doors), refrigerators quickly entered the homes of ordinary people. The popularization rate of refrigerators in 1957 was 2.8%, that in 1963 was 39. 1%, that in 1968 was 77.6%, and that in 1977 was 98.4%.

The popularity of refrigerators has changed the Japanese diet in at least two ways. One is the popularity of frozen food. There is a custom of paying attention to freshness in traditional Japanese diet, especially foods with high preservation requirements such as meat, fish and eggs account for a large proportion in Japanese cuisine. 1969, Japan established the frozen food association. In the same year, various home appliance manufacturers began to develop and sell dual-purpose refrigerators for freezing and refrigerating, and put frozen foods bought in supermarkets into refrigerators for storage. On the other hand, the kitchen has also changed. The popularity of refrigerators coincides with the decoration concept of "integrated kitchen" newly built in Japan in the 1960s. Housewives are busy in a kitchen space with a refrigerator, which has become an inevitable picture of every family every day. In the 1970s, refrigerators began to diversify, and more and more refrigerators adapted to different needs appeared. Color refrigerators appeared in 1979, and in 1985, in order to meet the demand of "one person living alone", a small door refrigerator was made for personal use. In the 1990s, with convenience stores gradually spreading to people's doorsteps, the function of refrigerators was gradually weakened. Refrigerators and convenience stores have further improved the "convenience" of Japanese food.

Of course, the most convenient thing is to eat out. During the period of rapid economic development after the war, people's pockets bulged and various restaurants mushroomed. 1970 is called the "first year" of Japanese catering industry. It was during the Osaka World Expo that many large restaurants caught up with the east wind and opened in succession to attract customers. 1970165438+10 In October, Mitsubishi Corporation cooperated with KFC to open the first KFC in Nagoya, but what was more striking was the first McDonald's in Japan, which was grandly opened in Mitsukoshi Department Store in Ginza, Tokyo on July 20th of the same year. On that day, more than 65438+100000 customers squeezed through the threshold and sold 6000 bottles of coke, with a daily sales volume of 6000 bottles. The famous Lark Family Restaurant also opened its first restaurant this year. 1984 introduced the set meal of stir-fried oysters with miso soup, which became the first Japanese dish in the restaurant. After being widely praised, the lark became out of control. 1986 held a tasting meeting of Japanese-style packages, and Japanese-style packages became one of the major brands. 1998, the number of Skylark Group hotels reached 1000. Chinese restaurants initially rose by around 1954. The original chefs were all from China, and Japanese appeared after 1955. Mapo Tofu and Sichuan Pork served in China Restaurant are very popular with Japanese people, and even the names of these famous dishes are pronounced directly in Chinese in Japanese. Jiaozi is another product imported from Chinese mainland, which became popular in Japan after World War II. Almost all Chinese restaurants in Japan can order jiaozi, but few in jiaozi. They are all fried dumplings (or fried dumpling) with Chinese cabbage meat. Japanese office workers often drink beer with this jiaozi with Japanese characteristics at night. Kimchi on the Korean peninsula was also introduced to Japan after the war, especially during the period of 1986- 1987, Japanese society began to eat spicy food, and the popularity of kimchi soared, so that many Japanese people today mistakenly think that kimchi itself is Japanese food. Another famous Japanese restaurant brand that can't be mentioned is Yoshinoya. Yoshinoya was founded in 1899, but it officially started as an enterprise after the war. 1 958+On February 27th, this restaurant, which mainly sells beef pots and beef rice, achieved annual sales of1100 million, started to open chain stores, and soon entered the American market on 1975. However, the seemingly prosperous Yoshinoya filed for bankruptcy at 1980 because of the debt of120 billion. The reason is that the rapid expansion of the store leads to the shortage of raw materials for the products, so the food quality of Yoshinoya is greatly reduced. 1987, Yoshinoya, who had already paid off his debts, learned from a bitter experience and began to develop chain operation vigorously, and successfully settled in. In 2004, there were more than 65,438+0,000 shops in Yoshinoya, Japan. Nowadays, its main beef rice of 280 yen is very popular, and many Japanese people and international students have become frequent visitors of Yoshinoya.

From the initial famine to today's satiated Japan, the evolution of taste is a microcosm of the economic leap. In 2004, according to the statistics of the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, there were 1570 large and medium-sized supermarkets in Japan with annual sales of 8,392 billion yen, food supermarkets1849.3 billion yen, annual sales of 1769 billion yen, 427,490 convenience stores with annual sales of 692.5 billion yen and restaurants. Eating enough is no longer a problem, and the Japanese have long been pursuing a diversified healthy diet.

(This article is taken from my book "Postwar Japan")