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Military menus
reproduced in civilian
canteens: rice, miso
soup and pork cutlet
with shredded
cabbage, 1980s.
The militarization of nutrition, and the chronic shortage of rice, set
the stage for the post-war transformation of Japanese diet represented by
the diminishing quantitative importance of rice and increased consumption
of bread, noodles and industrially processed food. The work initiated by the
Army Provisions Depot and supported by the wartime government continued.
Military menus were reproduced in restaurants and civilian canteens,
where military cooks and dieticians, and those educated during the 1940s
under the strong influence of the military model, found employment after
the war ended. Gradually, the militaristic connotation of the food and the
innovations implemented by the armed forces disappeared, amalgamated
into the mainstream civilian culture of the post-war era.
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