High Growth and the Food Revolution

Having passed through the age of hunger and rationing, Japan grew its economy from the late 1950s at a speed that astonished the world. This was the so-called high economic growth. As incomes rose and life grew richer, the table too greatly changed its form.

This change was not limited to a recovery of quantity. New foods were born, new tools entered the kitchen, and the act of eating out became a family pleasure. The very quality of food was rewritten by the power of technology and industry. In this eighth episode, we trace the age of what might be called a ‘food revolution’ that arrived beyond postwar reconstruction. One of its symbols was an entirely new kind of noodle that could be eaten simply by pouring hot water.

Two Minutes of Hot Water, the Magic Ramen

In August 1958 (Showa 33), a single food came into the world. It was the first instant ramen, ‘Chicken Ramen,’ released by a company led by Momofuku Ando.

The way it was made was groundbreaking. By seasoning and steaming the noodles, then frying them in oil to dry them, it could be preserved for a long time, and could be eaten in about two minutes by pouring hot water. This method, called ‘flash oil-heat drying,’ is said to have become the basis for later instant noodles. Ramen, which took such effort, could be reproduced easily at home. People of the time called it ‘magic ramen,’ and records show it sold explosively. The maker changed its company name to Nissin Foods at the end of that same year.

It is said that the postwar food situation also cast its shadow over the background of this invention. Large quantities of wheat were brought from the United States, and how to root wheat-based foods like bread and noodles in Japanese life was a challenge of the era. To deliver a staple other than rice, deliciously and easily — instant ramen can be seen as having spread while overlapping with such demands of its time. That the success of a single food was bound up not only with business talent but with a larger current surrounding the food of its age is a point not to be overlooked.

The White Box That Entered the Kitchen

The food revolution advanced not only in foods but in the tools that supported them. Among these, the one that greatly changed the table was the electric refrigerator.

During the high-growth period, the three items of the black-and-white television, the electric washing machine, and the electric refrigerator were called the ‘three sacred treasures’ and spread through households as symbols of an abundant life. Their spread was swift. According to one record, the ownership rate of electric refrigerators, which was only a few percent in 1957 (Showa 32), reached nearly seventy percent by 1965 (Showa 40).

The significance of the refrigerator entering the kitchen was greater than one might imagine. People could buy and store food in bulk, lightening the burden of daily shopping. Fresh foods and dairy could be safely kept, broadening the range of menus. Cold drinks and ice cream became everyday things thanks to this white box, too. A single tool in the kitchen quietly remade everything from shopping habits to menus to the family’s pleasure in food.

Eating Out Became a Family Pleasure

In a Japan grown rich, eating out changed from a feast for special days into an everyday family pleasure. The turning point came concentrated in 1970 (Showa 45).

That year, a new style of restaurant that families could enter casually together opened in the suburbs of Tokyo. It was the first outlet of Skylark, which would come to be called a family restaurant. With a large parking lot and affordable, mostly Western-style menus enjoyed by the whole family in a bright interior, this format, tied to the spread of the private car, spread as a form of dining out suited to suburban life.

In that same year, 1970, a world exposition was held in Osaka, where the world’s cuisines were introduced all in one place. A fried chicken chain opened a trial outlet and drew crowds, and the following year, 1971, the first Japanese outlet of a hamburger chain opened in Ginza, Tokyo. The culture of fast food, eaten casually while standing, thus began to take root in Japan. This period, when the dining-out industry blossomed all at once, would later be called the ‘first year of dining out.’

It is said that there were not a few dishes that many Japanese tasted for the first time at the venue of the Expo. The flavors of the world’s nations lined up at the site stirred in people a curiosity toward food cultures from outside. And what carried the interest sparked there into daily life was the chain stores that increased across the country. They offered standardized taste and service at the same quality everywhere in the nation. Such systems pushed dining out from the luxury of a few toward an everyday thing anyone could enjoy. Uniformity, in turn, produced reassurance and ease. It was an age in which abundance began to deliver the pleasure of food into every corner of society.

From the Table, Rice Quietly Declines

As these changes accumulated, the very food life of the Japanese changed at its structure. The clearest indicator of this is the consumption of rice.

According to statistics, per capita annual rice consumption peaked at about 118 kilograms in 1962 (Showa 37), and afterward continued a long decline. Some half a century later, it had fallen to less than half of that. Rice, which had held the throne of staple foods, gradually retreated from the center of the table.

There was not a single reason. The settling-in of bread, the increase of dishes using meat, dairy, and oil, the spread of dining out and instant foods. Through the door opened by the postwar bread and milk we saw in the previous episode, Western-style ingredients and dishes poured into daily life, and menus grew astonishingly diverse. Washoku and yoshoku, and further Chinese and other nations’ cuisines, came to line up as a matter of course on a single household’s table. This very mingling is what can be called the characteristic of the Japanese table completed in this age.

Whether to see this diversification as the achievement of abundance or as a departure from tradition — opinion remains divided even now, and it cannot be decided in favor of one or the other. What is certain is the fact that, through the high-growth period, the Japanese table greatly changed in both quantity and quality.

Amid the abundance built by a generation that had known hunger, Japanese food became more varied than almost anywhere in the world. And this rich, distinctive food culture would in time cease to remain within the country. As a healthy way of eating, as a refined cuisine, people across the sea began to take an interest in Japanese food. And the world began to turn its eyes toward Japanese food.