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Poached eggs
Omelettes
Beefsteak
Cold Roast Beef
Cold Corned Round Beef
Cold Tongue
Fruit 37
The second reason behind the prevalence of Anglo-Saxon rather than
French cookery in cheap Western-style restaurants in Japan was the fact
that English and American dishes were much less complex and therefore
easier to prepare. Furthermore, they were relatively inexpensive, since
they did not require ingredients that were extremely rare, such as the
truffles and foies gras that featured regularly in French haute cuisine. As
Stephen Mennell pointedly observed, the prestige that French cookery
enjoyed in the higher social circles in England resulted in the ‘decapitation’
of English cookery: ‘English-style cookery was deprived of elite models
of its own to copy, and this probably contributed to the mediocrity which
both contemporary and subsequent observers remarked on in English cookery
in the Victorian era.’ 38 A Japanese culinary reformer, Tetsuka Kaneko,
hit the nail right on its head when in 1911 she characterized Anglo-Saxon
cookery in one of her home economics lectures, in which she advocated
the incorporation of foreign dishes in the Japanese home meals: ‘As democratic
as American homes are, and as unsophisticated as the English homes
are, so extremely simple is their food, and easily adaptable for Japanese
homes. Therefore, I find them most suitable.’ 39
Fried fish, roast beef, roast chicken, beefsteak, veal cutlet, croquette,
beef curry, beef stew, soup and omelette dominated the menus of the
cheap Western-style restaurants that began to mushroom in Japan during
the 1890s. 40 Their characteristic feature was the focus on meat and fat – the
two ingredients that were hitherto lacking in the Japanese diet. Of course,
the fact that Victorian Britons took a dim view of vegetables, which they
believed had no nutritional value and fermented in the stomach, contributed
to the lack of vegetable dishes on the menus of the new restaurants, except
for the popular potato croquettes. 41
Dishes were not served – as was the general practice at exclusive
French restaurants in Japan – as set menus consisting of several courses.
Instead, food was to be ordered à la carte and accompanied by Japanesestyle
boiled rice. Worcestershire sauce was used on almost anything, for
the urban Japanese took it as the Western equivalent of their own universal
48