HISTORY OF EREWHON - NATURAL FOODS ... - SoyInfo Center

asement of a small hearing aid shop in Chico. It became
the first macrobiotic food production company in the USA.
1962 Christmas–George Ohsawa visits Chico and
lectures on macrobiotics.
1963–Ohsawa lectures in Boston, New York City, and
at the fourth macrobiotic summer camp (the first on the
West Coast) at Chico. Lima Ohsawa and Cornellia Aihara
give cooking classes. In Chico, Ohsawa suggests that the
group try making rice cakes. He sends them a rice cake
machine from Japan and production began in the fall of
1963. Rice cakes soon became Chico-San’s first really
popular and successful product.
1963 May–Junsei Yamazaki arrives in the USA (in San
Francisco) from Japan. He first goes (by bus) to Chico,
California, to help with the installation of small rice cake
machines. After the 1963 summer camp he goes to New
York, arriving in August.
1964 summer–Ohsawa lectures in California at the fifth
macrobiotic summer camp (2nd on West Coast) at Big Sur.
Lima Ohsawa and Cornellia Aihara give cooking classes.
1964 Sept.–After the Macrobiotic Summer Camp on
Martha’s Vineyard, the Kushi family moves from the island
to Cambridge, Massachusetts (101 Walden St., on the
outskirts of Boston to the northwest). Michio stops all his
outside business activities and directs his full attention to
teaching macrobiotics.
1964 Nov.–The first edition of Zen Cookery, edited by
Teal Nichols, a book of macrobiotic recipes (83 p.), is
published by the Ohsawa Foundation in Chico, California.
1965–The macrobiotic movement in America, though
small, is growing rapidly. Ohsawa lectures again in
California at Mayoro Lodge, near Pulga.
1965–Michio Kushi organizes the first East West
Institute out of his home in Cambridge and begins teaching
macrobiotics, cosmology, and cooking to mostly young
people.
1965–The third edition of Ohsawa’s Zen Macrobiotics
is prepared and published by Lou Oles of the Ohsawa
Foundation in Los Angeles. It contains much more
information (including much more about soyfoods) than the
original 1960 mimeographed edition or the printed 2nd ed.
1965–You are All Sanpaku by William Dufty is
published.
1965 Nov. 9–Beth Ann Simon, a young heroin addict
from New Jersey, dies while following a strict macrobiotic
diet. This is the movement’s first major setback. Ohsawa
and the macrobiotic diet receive much adverse publicity,
and the incident brands macrobiotics among many in the
medical and health professions as a dangerous and extreme
form of food faddism. The image was hard to get rid of. The
U.S. Food and Drug Administration closes the New York
branch of the Ohsawa Foundation, run by Irma Paule.
1966 April 24–George Ohsawa dies unexpectedly in
Tokyo, Japan, at age 72–just as his teaching is beginning to
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HISTORY OF EREWHON 22
spread rapidly in the West. The cause of his death: a heart
attack, perhaps caused by filarial parasites he had picked up
at Lambarene, Gabon.
1966 April–Erewhon opens as a tiny (10 by 20 foot)
retail store downstairs at 303-B Newbury Street in Boston.
1966, summer–Michio Kushi begins to lecture each
Monday and Wednesday evening in a back room of the
Arlington Street Church in Boston. These talks were
supplemented by cooking classes with Aveline Kushi in
Brookline.
2. Product Name: [Seitan].
Foreign Name: Seitan.
Manufacturer’s Name: Marushima Shoyu K.K.
Manufacturer’s Address: Kamigata-dori Ko 881,
Uchiumi-cho, Shodo-gun, Kagawa-ken, Japan.
Date of Introduction: 1962. January.
Wt/Vol., Packaging, Price: 3.5 oz jar.
How Stored: Shelf stable.
New Product–Documentation: Note: This is the world’s
earliest known commercial seitan product (March 2011). It
was first imported to the USA by Erewhon Trading Co. in
1969.
Talk with Aveline Kushi. 1992. April 9. The first seitan
imported to America was made by Marushima Shoyu Co. on
Shodoshima in Japan. George Ohsawa went to visit the
company, talked with Mr. Mokutani and showed him how to
make it. Marushima began to make seitan commercially in
the late 1960s. It was imported to America by Muso
Shokuhin at about the same time the first miso and shoyu
were imported. She thinks it came in small jars. This seitan
probably started to be imported to America in about 1969.
Letter (fax) from Yuko Okada of Muso Co. Ltd., Japan.
1992. July 2. “I remember the term ‘seitan’ since I was a
kid; it was probably coined by George Ohsawa. Sei means
‘is’ and tan is the first character in the Japanese term
tanpaku, which means ‘protein.’ So seitan means something
like ‘right protein substitute.’ Japan and Muso has carried
their seitan since Feb. 1966 when we started. We shipped
seitan to Erewhon on a regular basis from 1968. [Note:
Kotzsch. 1984, Dec. East West Journal p. 14-21 states that
Muso began to export foods in 1969.] We also exported it to
Chico-San [in the USA]. In Europe, we exported seitan to
Paris, France.” This seitan went to Institut Tenryu, which
had a little macrobiotic food shop in Paris run by Madame
Francoise Riviere.
Muso Shokuhin. Pure Heart–Muso general catalogue.
1990 July. p. 41. A color photo shows a 180-gm jar of
Seitan. The product name is written in English. On the
label: “Made under the guidance of George Ohsawa.”
Talk with Mr. Kiyoshi Mokutani, president of
Marushima Shoyu K.K. in Japan. 1992. July 12. “The
invention and development of seitan in Japan.” He invented
seitan in 1961-62 and took a sample to George Ohsawa,