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catering systems of the Western armies and made them realize that issues
beyond the distribution of foodstuffs were at stake. 71 The change of attitude
towards military catering became apparent in the publication in 1910
of the first army cookbook, with the following remark in the introduction:
In the military it is necessary not to be concerned with outside
beauty and luxury when preparing meals. However, if people
in charge of cooking do not study cookery at all and every day
repeat monotonous and tasteless menus, then even with a high
sum for provisions and good quality, fresh ingredients they
will never reach the aim of military upbringing. The purpose
of this book, by compiling an outline of Japanese and Western
cooking techniques, is to become a helpful reference for military
men responsible for cooking. It should be strictly avoided
to compete in vain in cooking skills or in extravagant menus.
One must never forget the hardships of the battlefield. 72
The cookbook contained 146 recipes, including several for yōshoku, such
as rice curry, cutlet, stew and potato-and-beef croquettes; three recipes for
baking bread are also found. 73 These efforts were not sufficient, however,
to bolster the quality of meals served in the Japanese army. As well as lack
of guidance and coordination, cooking was held in low esteem as a duty to
be performed by a soldier. 74 Fragmentation of responsibilities and missing
links between the accounting divisions and the Provisions Depot further
contributed to the chaos in the army kitchens. The Siberian expedition
of 1918 provides a case in point. The accounting divisions anticipated
that rice would not be easily procured on location and provided catering
divisions with portable ovens, designed by the Provisions Depot, to bake
bread. For the majority of soldiers, however, this was the first encounter
with bread, and, as was the case in the navy a few decades earlier, they
rejected the unknown staple en masse. 75 The fact that no such drastic reactions
to the Western- and Chinese-style dishes were reported suggests the
particularly important position that rice assumed in the military diet.
Regardless of the shortcomings of the army catering system, in the
early twentieth century military diet was far above the national average.
As indicated earlier, a soldier consumed considerably more rice than an
urban civilian, not to mention that few peasants could afford rice on a daily
basis. Furthermore, by the 1910s the average quantity of beef consumed
per soldier was approximately 13 kilograms a year, while the average per
head of the population was roughly 1 kilogram. The quantity of fish served
77