July 1, 2005
Published in "Juku" 2005, No. 247
From the end of the Edo period, Yukichi Fukuzawa, as an enlightenment thinker, passionately worked to introduce Western civilization.
This extended not only to scholarship and thought but also to people's clothing, food, and housing, and based on his three experiences in the West, he even published an illustrated practical guide titled "Seiyō Ishokujū" (Western Clothing, Food, and Housing).
After the Meiji Restoration, Yukichi Fukuzawa played a major role in the modernization of food, such as by promoting meat-eating with scientific backing. Let's trace his footsteps.
A Realization in Europe: No "Expel the Barbarians" at the Dinner Table!
A look into "Fukuō Jiden" (The Autobiography of Old Man Fukuzawa) reveals that Yukichi Fukuzawa was a person with a strong interest in food.
The description, "drinking a great deal of high-quality sake, eating plenty of fine side dishes, and after being completely full, eating a large amount of rice with nothing left over," shows his epicurean and magnanimous nature in his youth. In his later years, he paid close attention to the relationship between diet and health, and it seems he made an effort to drink in moderation from his mid-thirties. He also stated the following regarding the upbringing of his nine children.
"In my child-rearing methods, I paid more attention to food than to clothing. I might have dressed them in plain clothes, but I made sure to provide them with nutritious food, so all nine of them never lacked for physical nourishment from a young age."
During the Meiji period, he worked to popularize meat and dairy products, and he introduced Western-style meals (bread) to the Keio University cafeteria from an early stage. Fukuzawa himself preferred bread for breakfast, and there is an anecdote of him scolding Keio students who threw away the nutritious crusts of the bread without eating them. This proactive attitude toward Western food was undoubtedly not just a matter of personal taste but also stemmed from a sense of mission to actively introduce Western civilization, which was essential for modernization. A new food culture was indispensable for the health of each citizen who shouldered the great task of Civilization and Enlightenment.
During the late Edo period, Yukichi Fukuzawa published many books introducing Western civilization, the advanced civilization of the time, including "Things Western (Seiyō Jijō)." As one of these, in 1867, he wrote a small, illustrated booklet titled "Seiyō Ishokujū," in which he clearly introduced Western table manners and the alcoholic beverages that accompany meals.
"Westerners do not use chopsticks. Meats and other items are cut into large pieces and served on a flat plate, placed in front of each person. One cuts them into smaller pieces with a knife in the right hand and eats by spearing them with a fork in the left hand. It is considered extremely bad manners to place food on the tip of the knife and bring it directly to the mouth." (From the beginning of the food section in "Seiyō Ishokujū")
Regarding the beer he first drank in America after crossing on the Kanrin Maru, he commented on its effects and taste: "This is beer; its taste is quite bitter, but it is excellent for opening up the chest. Also, depending on a person's disposition, many people enjoy and drink it for its bitter taste." Incidentally, Yukichi Fukuzawa, who was a heavy drinker in his youth, practiced moderation in his later years, but it is said that beer was an indispensable part of his evening drink.
When he toured various European countries for about a year as a hired interpreter for the Bunkyū Mission to Europe, Yukichi Fukuzawa humorously recalled the time the delegation tasted Western cuisine in the dining halls of their hotels, saying, "no matter how much one may hate the West, there is no thought of expelling the barbarians from one's stomach" ("Fukuō Jiden"). Perhaps it was at this time that he realized the power of food to make many people experience the state of modern civilization, transcending language barriers.
Yukichi Fukuzawa's Breakfast: Bread and Café au Lait
Yukichi Fukuzawa's preference for Western foods like bread, coffee, and beef seems to have been cultivated through his three trips to America and Europe during the late Edo period. However, it appears he had been exposed to and admired Western lifestyles, including food, since his time studying Dutch studies in Nagasaki. Furthermore, "Fukuō Jiden" contains a description of him eating and drinking at a beef hot-pot restaurant with other students when he was the President of Tekijuku in Osaka. This was between 1857 and 1858, when Yukichi Fukuzawa was the President of Tekijuku. In other words, this was before the opening of the country in 1859. Since Emperor Tenmu issued a ban on meat-eating in the latter half of the 7th century, the Japanese had been forbidden from eating beef for a remarkable 1,200 years, and of course, it was still a prohibited item at that time. The ban on meat-eating in our country was lifted in December 1871. The following January, Emperor Meiji himself tried beef. In this way, meat-eating culture began to permeate Japanese society, leading the charge of Civilization and Enlightenment, and it is thought that the influence of Yukichi Fukuzawa as an opinion leader for the introduction of Western civilization, including its food, was significant in this.
Yukichi Fukuzawa also played a part in popularizing milk. This was triggered by his bout with typhus in 1870. Although he fell into a critical condition at one point, Yukichi Fukuzawa made a full recovery by drinking milk every day. Afterward, at the request of the Tsukiji Gyūba Kaisha, from which he had been ordering milk, he wrote a piece to promote its benefits to society. In it, there is a sentence stating that mixing milk with strongly brewed coffee results in a "very fragrant taste," which may be the earliest introduction of "café au lait" in Japan. Incidentally, looking at the Fukuzawa family's breakfast menu in the late 1880s and early 1890s, there were days with bread and butter, and either café au lait or milk tea. At other times, they might have had bread with soft-boiled eggs.
While Yukichi Fukuzawa himself seems to have genuinely enjoyed Western foods like bread, when he recommended beef and milk to the people living in the era of Civilization and Enlightenment, he did so not just for their taste but with objective backing in terms of nutrition and health. It is also noteworthy that he devised ways for people to accept Western menus without difficulty. In 1893, the newspaper "Jiji Shinpō," founded by Yukichi Fukuzawa, began serializing what was likely the first-ever cooking column in newspaper history, titled "Nani ni shiyō ne" (What shall we make today?). This was a practical column for housewives struggling with daily menus, and it was extremely popular with readers during its run. The menus introduced were mainly Japanese dishes that made use of seasonal ingredients, but Western-style items such as fried oysters, Toruko raisu (Turkish rice), soup, and salad were casually incorporated. Furthermore, in the "Kōjun Zasshi," the journal published by the Kōjunsha, Japan's oldest social club established at the suggestion of Yukichi Fukuzawa, there seems to have been active enlightenment regarding Western foods and food culture.
In this way, new dishes appeared one after another in the Japanese diet during the Meiji period. One of these is the well-known curry rice, and when we trace the encounter between the Japanese and curry, the name Yukichi Fukuzawa once again emerges. In 1860, when Yukichi Fukuzawa accompanied the shogunate's mission to the United States, he purchased a Chinese-English dictionary titled *Kaei Tsūgo*, originally written by Ziqing of Qing China. After returning to Japan, he published an adapted version with Japanese translations and English pronunciations, titled "