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quo, by discarding the prevailing practice of purchasing food for the
troops from contracted cook shops, inns and pedlars. The introduction of
a system of military catering marked a radical change that required the
development of an entirely new structure of distributing and preparing
food within the armed forces. 30
The Conscript Edict of 1873 stipulated a daily ration per soldier at 6
gō (approximately 840 grams) of white rice and an allowance of 6 sen and
6 rin (0.066 yen) for the remaining provisions. 31 The 6 gō quota was higher
than an average of the contemporary civilian consumption, which oscillated
between 3.9 and 4.4 gō and still translated into the huge amount of three
to five helpings of rice according to today’s standards. 32 Major Henry
Knollys was astonished, along with the simplicity of the Japanese military
diet, at the mass of consumed rice. ‘The Japanese soldier’ – he wrote – ‘is
perfectly satisfied with an enormous bowl of plain, snow-white rice as a
staple, with little pieces of pickle as a relish.’ 33
The ability to maintain a rice-based diet on a daily basis was a marker
of status in nineteenth-century Japan, similar to meat consumption as a
status marker in Europe. According to government surveys conducted
during the 1880s, the proportion of rice among staples consumed by the
Japanese population constituted approximately 50 per cent. Barley, wheat,
sweet potatoes and millet were recorded to have comprised the remaining
half. 34 It is obvious that there was not enough rice to sustain the entire
population, but it is practically impossible to determine precisely who ate
how much rice when, and how often. This depended not only on social
class, income and the region one lived in, but also on harvest conditions
that varied from year to year. 35 It seems certain that the elite classes and the
majority of the urban population relied on rice as their staple, never
mixing it with other grains. 36 Still, scholars’ opinions vary concerning the
consumption of rice among the farming population, which in the late
nineteenth century constituted over 80 per cent of all Japanese. Persistent
peasant protests and village disturbances demanding rice are often used in
favour of the argument that rice was an integral part of peasant diet. 37 On
the other hand, historical records, such as the following fragment from
1721, indicate that rice was only sporadically consumed by farmers in premodern
Japan:
Peasants who reside in the areas with rice paddies may sometimes
eat rice, but only in combination with other edibles. Many
of those who live in the mountains or areas with dry fields cannot
even eat rice for the three festive days of the new year. Even
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