SHALL THE JAPANESE EAT BREAD AND MEAT?
Bon yori shoko (Proof, not argument)
One day in Tokyo I heard a Japanese who was looking at a photograph of a British woman War-worker feeding pigs ask if the animals were sheep. Sheep are so rare in Japan that an old ram has been exhibited at a country fair as a lion. In contrast with Western agriculture based on live stock we have in Japan an agriculture based on rice.[[247]] But a section of the Japanese agricultural world turns its eyes longingly to mixed farming, and so, when I returned to Sapporo from my trip to the north of Hokkaido, I was taken to see a Government stock farm—with a smoking volcano in the background. Hokkaido has four other official farms, one belonging to the Government and one for raising horses for the army. I was shown, in addition to horses, Ayrshire, Holstein and Brown Swiss cattle, Berkshire and Yorkshire pigs and Southdown and Shropshire sheep in good buildings. I noticed two self-binders and a hay loader and I beheld for the first time in Japan a dairymaid and collies—one was of a useless show type.
The extent to which the knack of looking after animals and a liking for them can be developed is an interesting question. Experts in stock-keeping with generations of experience behind them will agree that it is on the answer to this question that the success or non-success of the Japanese in animal industry in no small measure depends.
I have a note of a discussion on the general treatment of domestic animals in Japan in the course of which it was admitted that they were "certainly not treated as well as in most parts of Europe, or as in China." One reason given was that "most sects believe in the reincarnation of the wicked in the form of animals." The freedom which dogs enjoyed in English houses seemed strange; my friends no doubt forgot that Western houses have no tatami to be preserved. It was contended, however, that cavalry soldiers "often weep on parting from their horses" and that "people with knowledge of animals are fond of them." I have myself seen farmers' wives in tears at a horse fair when the foals they had reared were to be sold and the animals in their timidity nuzzled them. Westerners who are familiar with the exquisite and humoursome studies of animal, bird and insect life by Japanese artists of the past and present day,[ [248]] are in no doubt that such work was prompted by real knowledge and love of the "lower creation." The Japanese have a keen appreciation of the "song" of an amazing variety of "musical" insects—there are 20,000 kinds of insects. It is an appreciation not vouchsafed to the foreigner whose nerves are racked by the insistent bizz of the semi or cicada—there are 38 kinds of cicada. Everyone will recall Hearn's chapter on the trade in "singing insects."
One of my hosts in Aichi had two tiny cages which each contained one of these creatures. The cages were hung from the eaves. In the evening when the stone lantern in the garden was lit, and it was desired to give an illusion of greater coolness after a hot day a servant was sent up to the roof to pour down a tubful of water in order to produce the dripping sound of rain; and this at once set the caged insects chirping.
The sensitive foreigner is distressed by the way in which newly born puppies and kittens are thrown out to die because their Buddhist owners are too scrupulous to kill them. The stranger's feelings are also worked on by the unhappy demeanour and uncared-for look of dogs and cats. On chancing to enter in a Japanese city an English home where there were three dogs I could not but mark how they contrasted in bearing and appearance with the generality of the animals I had seen. Yet these dogs were all mongrel foundlings which had been abandoned near my friend's house or dropped into her garden. No doubt most Japanese dogs suffer from having too much rice—and polished at that—and practically no bones. An excuse for the neglect of cats is that they scratch woodwork and tatami and insist on carrying their food into the best room.
Horses are often overloaded and mercilessly driven on hilly roads.[ [249]] On the other hand, carters lead their horses. It might be added that the coolies who haul and push handcarts bearing enormous loads never spare themselves. I was told more than once of people who had been too tenderhearted to make an end of old horses. I also heard of hens which had been allowed to live on until they died of old age. In some mountain communities it is the custom, when a chicken must be killed for a visitor's meal, for an exchange of birds to be made with a neighbour in order that the killing may not be too painful for the owner.[[250]]
Except in hotels and stores in Tokyo and the cities which cater for foreigners, one seldom sees such an animal product as cheese. On the Government farm I found excellent cheese and butter being made. Untravelled Japanese have the dislike of the smell of cheese that Western people have of the stench of boiling daikon. Nor is cheese the only alien food with which the ordinary Japanese has a difficulty. The smell of mutton is repugnant to him and he has yet to acquire a taste for milk. The demand for milk is increasing, however. The guide books are quite out of date. Nearly all the milk ordinarily sold for foreigners and invalids is supplied sterilised in bottles. On the platforms of the larger railway stations bottles of milk are vended from a copper container holding hot water. In places where I have been able to obtain bread I have usually had no difficulty in getting milk. (The word for bread, pan, has been in the language since the coming of the Portuguese, and all over Japan one finds sponge cake, kasutera, a word from the Spanish.) Butter in country hotels is usually rancid, for the reason, I imagine, that it is carelessly handled and kept too long and that few Japanese know the taste of good butter. The development of a liking for bread and butter is obviously one of the conditions of the establishment of a successful animal industry. Condensed milk is sold in large quantities, but chiefly to supplement infants' supplies and to make sweetstuff. The 1919 production was estimated at 57 million tins.
One argument for an animal industry is that with an increasing population the fish supply will not go so far as it has done. It is said that fish are not to be found in as large quantities as formerly. Another argument is that the national imports include many products of animal industry which might be advantageously produced at home. Not only is more milk, condensed and fresh, being consumed: with the adoption of foreign clothes in professional and business life and in the army and navy, more and more wool is being worn [[251]] and more and more leather is needed for the boots which are being substituted for geta and also for service requirements. It is contended that for the emancipation of Japanese agriculture from the petite culture stage it is essential that a larger number of draught oxen and horses shall be used. It is equally important, it is suggested, that more manure shall be made on the farms, so that a limit shall be placed on the outlay on imported fertilisers. Finally there are those who urge that the Japanese should be better fed and that better feeding can only be brought about by an increased consumption of animal products. [[252]]
The possibilities of outdoor stock keeping in Hokkaido are limited by the fact that snow lies from November to the middle of February and in the north of the island to the end of March. A high agricultural authority did not think that the number of cattle in all Japan could be raised to more than two million within twenty years.[[253]]
In the management of sheep—there were about 5,000 in the whole country when I was in Hokkaido—there has been failure after failure, but it is held that the prospects for sheep in Hokkaido are promising. (The question is discussed in the next Chapter.) At present, owing to the lack of a market for mutton, pigs, which used to be kept in the days before Buddhism exerted its influence, seem more attractive to experimenting farmers than sheep. No one has proposed that sheep should be kept in ones and twos for milking as in Holland.[[254]] When milk is needed it is said that goats, of which there are more than 90,000 in Japan, are desirable stock, but I doubt whether more than 500 of these goats are milked.[ [255]] They are kept to produce meat. Some people hope that those who eat goat's flesh will come to realise the superiority of mutton.
The case for pigs is that sweet potatoes and squash can be fed to them, that they produce frequent litters, that pork is more and more appreciated, and that there are 300,000 of them in the country already. Some confident experts who have possibly been influenced by the large consumption of pork in China argue that pork may become equally popular in Japan. There are two bacon factories not far from Tokyo.
As in other countries, the argument for doing away with foreign imports is pushed in Japan to ridiculous lengths. Japan, which aims above all at being an exporting country, cannot attain her desire without receiving imports to pay for her exports. [[256]] The physiological argument for an animal industry is unconvincing. The Japanese have a long dietetic history as vegetarians who eat a little fish and a few eggs. There exists in Japan an exceptionally ingenious variety of nitrogenous foods derived from the vegetable kingdom, and the Japanese have become accustomed to digest vegetable protein. [[257]] It might be suggested, with some show of reason, that in this matter of the adoption of a meat dietary the Japanese are once more under the influence of foreign ideas which are a little out of date.[[258]] In Europe and America there is evidence of a decreasing meat consumption among educated people, and medical papers are full of counsels to diminish the amount of meat consumed. There is also in the West an increasing sensitiveness to the horrors inflicted on animals in transportation by rail and steamer, and if an animal industry were established in Japan there would certainly be a great deal of transportation by rail and steamer from the breeding to the rearing districts, and from these districts to the slaughtering centres. If the present advocacy of an animal industry for Japan should triumph over the reluctance to take animal life inculcated by Buddhism it is hardly likely to be regarded in the West as a forward step in the ethical evolution of the Japanese. [[259]]
I had the good fortune to meet in Sapporo a man who has made a special study of the food of the Japanese people, Professor Morimoto of the University. He said that he had no doubt that when the Japanese began to eat bread instead of rice they would develop a taste for meat as well as butter. With great kindness he placed at my disposal statistics which he afterwards expanded in a thesis for Johns Hopkins University. He had investigated the dietary of the families of 200 tenants of the University farms. Reduced to terms of men per day the result was:
| Sen. | |
| Rice (1.95 go) | 4.2 |
| Vegetables | 2.2 |
| (Naked) barley (3.45 go) | 3.3 |
| Fish | 1.0 |
| Miso | .7 |
| Pickles[[260]] | .6 |
| Sake | .08 |
| Shoyu (soy) | .03 |
| Sugar | .02 |
| —— | |
| 12.13 |
Or at Tokyo prices, 14.3 sen. On averaging, in terms of per man per day, the food and drink consumption of all Japan, Professor Morimoto found the result to be:
| Sen. | ||
| Grain | 6.60 | |
| Legumes | .39 | |
| Vegetables | 2.00 | |
| Fish and seaweeds | .54 | |
| Beef and veal | .10 } | |
| Other animal food | .03 } | |
| Chicken | .03 } | .33 |
| Eggs | .13 } | |
| Milk | .04 } | |
| Fruits | .40 | |
| Sugar | .53 | |
| Salt | .20 | |
| Tea | .10 | |
| Alcoholic liquor | 1.50 | |
| Tobacco | .45 | |
| —— | ||
| 13.04 | [[261]] |
The Professor compares with these totals the 34.4 sen and 39.3 sen per day which seem to represent the cost of the food of the rank and file in the navy and army, and three standards of diet issued by the official Bureau of Hygiene providing for expenditures of 32.1 sen, 33 sen and 44.4 sen respectively. (All the prices I have cited are dated 1915.) Beef and pork as well as fish are used in the army and navy. The navy also uses bread.
Professor Morimoto estimates that a Japanese may be fairly expected to consume only 80 per cent. of what a foreigner needs, for the average weight of Japanese is only 13 kwan 830 momme to the European's 17 kwan 20 momme.
My personal impression, which I give merely for what it is worth, for I have made no investigation of the subject, is that, though Japanese may thrive on meagre fare, they eat large quantities of food when their resources permit of indulgence. The common ailment seems to be "stomach ache." This may be due to eating at irregular hours, to an unbalanced dietary, to the eating of undercooked viands or to occasional over-eating, or to all of these causes.[[262]] Undoubtedly there is much room for dietetic reform.
Professor Morimoto had come to the conclusion "that there is under-feeding, largely due to a bad choice of foods, that the relation of the nutritive value of foods to their cost is insufficiently studied and that cooking can be improved." It is of course an old criticism of the Japanese table that food is either imperfectly cooked or prepared too much with a view to appearance. The Professor's finding was that the Japanese need the addition of meat and bread to their dietary. As far as meat is concerned he did not convince me. Let me quote him on the soy bean: "It is a remarkably good substitute for meat. It is very low in price but its nutritive value is very high. The essential element of miso, tofu and shoyu is soy bean." Bread is another matter. The Japanese Navy, presumably because it may find itself far from Japan, has accustomed its sailors to eat bread, and a case can certainly be made out for the general population not relying on rice as a grain food. But, as the large quantities of barley eaten show, there is no such reliance now. Morimoto urged that while there might be no difference in the nutritive value of wheat and rice, rice as usually eaten induced "abnormal distension of the stomach and poor nutrition." Again, wheat was a world crop, [[263]] whereas rice, owing to the Japanese objection to foreign rice, was a local crop. If the Japanese were users of wheat as well as of rice they would not have to pay so much for food, when, on the failure of the rice crop in considerable parts of Japan, the price of rice was high. "The consumption is about 10 million bushels more than the production." Further, rice was more costly in cultivation than wheat, and its production could not be increased so as to keep pace with the increase in population. The yield, which was 46 million koku in 1904, was only 50 millions in 1912; and 65 millions in 1927 seemed an excessive estimate. In 1912 the importation of rice was 2 million koku. But on all these points the reader should take note of the data on page 84 and in Appendices XXIV and XXV.
The Professor's concluding point against rice was that it was expensive to prepare. The washing of the rice in a succession of waters and the cleaning of the sticky pot in which it was cooked and of the equally sticky tub in which it was served took a great deal of time. Then in order to cook rice properly—and the Japanese have become connoisseurs—the exact proportion of water must be gauged. The supplies of rice to be cooked were so considerable that the name of the servant lass was "girl to boil the rice." But when bread was used instead of rice, said the Professor jubilantly, a baking twice a week would do. Why, an hour a day might be saved, which in twenty years would be 73,000 hours, or a whole year, and, reckoning women's labour as worth 5 sen an hour, that would be a saving of 565 yen!