Yamakawa Kenjiro and Japanese Curry Rice

Curry rice is probably one of the most popular items of modern Japanese cuisine. But it is hardly indigenous to Japan, and it has a history barely a 150 years long. So how did this get started? Who was the first Japanese person to eat something that's become such a staple?

That person would be Yamakawa Kenjiro (1854-1931, at left): physicist, teacher, and (in my opinion) all-around awesome guy. Born in Aizu to a high-ranking samurai family, he survived the Boshin War, where he saw the action firsthand, including the grisly death of at least one member of his family. This affected him deeply, and for the rest of his life he was active in the "Aizu diaspora," and also as an advisor to the domain's ex-daimyo family. It also spurred him to gather interviews and documents, so while he's known as a physicist, he is also an historian who wrote several major works, including the lengthy Aizu Boshin Senshi [A History of Aizu in the Boshin War].

His claim to fame is physics. He was the first Japanese person to earn a Ph.D. in the field, and also one of the first to attend Yale University, at the Sheffield School. He went on to become president of Tokyo University and Kyoto University, as well as one of the founders of Kyushu University. Those of you who know your Nobel laureates-- Yukawa Hideki, first Japanese Nobel laureate, was one of his students. Yamakawa was later ennobled, and served in the Privy Council. He died in 1931.

At any rate, how's the curry fit in? He was the first Japanese person to eat it, or so the story goes, during his time at Yale. The Japanese style curry rice we know today is a variant of the Royal Navy's curry rice, but that was still a few years in the future during Yamakawa's Connecticut days. Little did he know he was the first to partake in what would become so established, by our time!

Here is a recipe for Japanese-style curry rice. Enjoy, and think of that young student in Yale. How many of us, I wonder, are unknowing trendsetters?

Works Cited

• Beef Curry on Wikimedia Commons (accessed 2 May 2013)
• Curry recipe on Food.com (accessed 2 May 2013)
• Nakamura  Akihiko. Byakkotai. Tokyo: Bungei shunju, 2001.
• Yamakawa Kenjiro. Aizu Boshin Senshi. Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1933.

Foot Soldiers and Pastry

(at left: the characters for "foot soldier" [ashigaru])

Hello everyone! It's been a long time, I hope you all are well. School has taken up a lot of my time for translation this semester, so my translation schedule and personal research has had to take a back seat. I'm still translating, but slowly.

Today I would like to talk a little bit about a snack called okoshi, and its relation to the southern part of Tohoku region. All too often when I think of history, I forget about the flavors involved. But food, then as now, was important!

In Kyodoshi Sendai Mimibukuro ("A Collection of Local History from Sendai"), folk historian Mihara Ryokichi devotes a chapter (pp. 95-98) to some of the foot soldiers who served the Date clan of Sendai. Specifically, the chapter discusses three groups of these foot soldiers (called ashigaru in Japanese) who were assigned as permanent security detachments along certain key roads or bridges. At any rate, the unit that lived at Imaichi, on the road between Sendai and Shiogama, was known for making a local pastry called tsuno-okoshi. This pastry was popular, says Mihara, among people coming back from visits to Shiogama Shrine. As the foot soldiers' official income from the Date clan for security duty would've been small, they did this to supplement their incomes. All three units had different side jobs-- for example, the one at Suwa, in the Nagamachi district of modern Sendai, made brooms.

I have been unable to figure out how tsuno-okoshi is different from regular okoshi. Given the word tsuno ("horn" or "corners"), I assume the okoshi in question would either be shaped like an animal's horn, or have corners. Given what okoshi usually looks like, I think it's safe to assume it's the latter.

So! In the spirit of hands-on research, here is a link to a Hawaiian-style recipe for okoshi. The ingredients should be readily available in the US. Enjoy, and remember those foot soldiers!

Sources:

*"Puffed Rice Cookie (Okoshi), from "Cooking Hawaiian Style" food blog, accessed 20 Dec. 2012 http://cookinghawaiianstyle.com/index.php/hawaiian-recipes/recipes/detail/608/puffed-rice-cookie-okoshi
*Mihara Ryokichi, Kyodoshi Sendai Mimibukuro (Sendai: Hobundo Shuppansha, 1983).