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Wartime communal cooking provided another incentive for dietary
homogenization. With the introduction of food rationing, the position of
the family as the basic unit of consumption was shifted to the ‘neighbourhood
associations’ (tonarigumi). From 1940 towns and villages were divided
into ‘neighbourhood associations’, comprising approximately 10–20 households,
and ‘block associations’ (chōnaikai), consisting of approximately
twenty ‘neighbourhood associations’. Food rations were allocated not to
individuals or families, but to ‘neighbourhood associations’. This necessitated
the joint purchase of food and joint cooking by the members of each
association. The land for vegetable gardens and the seeds were also allotted
to the ‘neighbourhood association’ as a unit. Dieticians employed at
the government-controlled food distribution centres provided the associations
with recipes and other advice on how to cook the relatively unknown
foodstuffs in an efficient manner. 46 Since this knowledge was manufactured
at the centralized organs of the state, it greatly contributed to dietary
homogenization. We may presume that in the circumstances of communal
dining, the distributed advice was followed more closely than would have
been the case in individual family kitchens.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to assess whether the dissemination
of practical advice on nutrition by the wartime authorities made a difference
in the daily struggle for survival. Half of the troops that the
Japanese Imperial Army lost between 1937 and 1945 died not on the battlefield
but from starvation and malnutrition-related diseases. 47 These figures
do not necessarily discredit the military catering system and military
nutritional policies. They simply imply that the logistical capacities of
the Japanese armed forces were unable to catch up with the expansionist
ambitions of their leaders. The food supply at the home front deteriorated
hand in hand with the losses at the front line. By 1944 the content of
public campaigns had shifted from rice substitutes and instructions on
maintaining vegetable gardens to emergency advice on edible weeds and
how to use eggshells and brew soy sauce out of fish bones. Advertisements
of various nutritional supplements frequently appeared in the printed
media. For example, the Yeast Plant Institute in Uji developed a remedy
for indigestion in the form of yeast-based pills, and Hoshi Pharmaceutics
invented heroin-based pills, which were supposed to stimulate digestion,
relieve constipation and generally improve the physical constitution. The
product marketed under the name Shokueiso was advertised as a cooking
activator that improved the taste of food, removed the bad smell of stale
ingredients, softened fibrous vegetables and generally halved the cooking
time. 48 These desperate attempts to nourish the nation through the use of
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