The date was October 28, 1935. The night could have been peaceful and relaxing for 26-year-old Fukuda Katsu living in Tokyo if her husband did not complain about dinner. After quibbling about her cooking of rice, he rebuked Katsu for lack of knowledge: “You are too indifferent about calories.” His words were like a slap…
Author: Jing SUN
Jing Sun is a research fellow at the Death and Life Studies and Practical Ethics (Research Center) at the University of Tokyo. She holds master’s degrees in international politics and public policy and received her Ph.D. in history from University of Pennsylvania. Her research examines the production, spread, and broad impact of scientific knowledge of food in Japan as a member of the modern world featuring cross-border movement of ideas, commodities, and people. She has published studies on topics of nutrition science and food economy in Japan. She is currently working on the first book project to revise and publish her Ph.D. dissertation titled “Eating by Numbers: Nutrition, Health, and the Political Economy of Food in Modern Japan, 1882-1952.”
Rice in Bowls
It was the mixed rice again. Four months had passed since the Japanese soldiers of the First Regiment of Imperial Guard first saw such staple in November 1886. Instead of shining white rice, their bowls held some yellowish rice with barley kernels. They heard that soldiers in the Second and Third Regiment had the same…