Reconstruction
Japan’s modern turn toward meat was not a simple switch from abstinence to appetite. Edo-period Buddhist and pollution taboos made slaughter and the eating of four-legged domestic animals socially fraught, but they were never universal. Archaeological finds from late Edo sites around the capital include deer, boar, bear, horse, dog and other mammals, while written traditions describe game eaten as “medicine.” The sharper Meiji change concerned public legitimacy—especially for beef—and the institutions that supplied it.
The process was already visible before 1872. Yokohama’s foreign settlement created demand for cattle after the port opened, and a beef-hot-pot shop is documented there by 1862. Kanagaki Robun’s comic Aguranabe, published in 1871–1872, placed customers in a gyunabe restaurant and satirized beef eating as a badge of “civilization and enlightenment.” In 1872 the court publicly associated Emperor Meiji with eating beef, giving elite sanction to a practice promoted as Western, rational and strengthening. Gyunabe made unfamiliar beef approachable: cooks simmered it with scallions or leeks, tofu and later other vegetables, using miso or a sweet-salty mixture of soy sauce, sugar and sake to soften its odor and fit established communal-pot habits.
Restaurants, new slaughtering and distribution businesses, women’s education, mass print and urban wage life widened exposure. Meat also entered yōshoku—Japanese adaptations of Western cooking—including curry rice, croquettes and pork cutlets. Yet acceptance was unequal. Early Meiji meat dishes remained concentrated among urban, educated and wealthier diners, while most rural meals continued to center on grains, vegetables, pickles, soy foods and fish where available. Historical food-balance estimates put meat at only about 0.5 calories per person per day in 1878–1882 and 5.8 in 1933–1937: evidence of growth, but not of a meat-heavy national diet.
The armed forces and empire reshaped supply. Military and civilian beef demand rose after the Russo-Japanese War, outstripping domestic cattle production. Japan imported cattle and meat from colonial Korea and from Qingdao and Shandong; importers and officials also confronted rinderpest, while cheaper imported beef broadened the market beneath prized, fattened domestic beef. Canning supported military provisioning from the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion onward, and barracks and naval kitchens familiarized conscripts with meat-containing stews and curry.
War then reversed abundance. From 1940–1941 rationing expanded, and official media recommended sardines, whale and rabbit as inexpensive substitutes. Estimated meat calories fell to 2.3 per person per day in 1943–1947. By 1950 meat was culturally legitimate and embedded in restaurants, military food and recognizable modern dishes, but routine mass consumption was still emerging. The dramatic nationwide rise belongs chiefly to the post-1950 decades. Today’s sukiyaki, tonkatsu, curry and korokke preserve the Meiji-era pattern: foreign-associated meat made Japanese through local seasonings, rice service and shared cooking forms.
Historical context
Japan was being transformed from the decentralized Tokugawa order into an industrial, constitutional and increasingly imperial state. Its population grew from an estimated 34.8 million in 1872 to about 83.2 million in 1950; Tokyo Prefecture alone counted roughly 3.7 million residents in the 1920 census. Railways, modern ports, slaughterhouses, print culture, conscript armies and military canning connected producers and urban consumers on a new scale. Expansion into Korea, Taiwan, southern Sakhalin, Manchuria and parts of China also reorganized food supply through unequal imperial trade. The period ended not in abundance but after wartime rationing, urban destruction and severe postwar shortages.
Evidence
Archaeological
ModerateAnimal remains from late Edo sites around Edo demonstrate that mammal consumption preceded the Meiji government, although they do not establish population-wide frequency.
Zooarchaeological
StrongIdentified bones of wild and domestic mammals directly challenge the claim that pre-Meiji residents universally avoided meat; the absence of cattle at cited sites also supports distinguishing beef from meat generally.
Written sources
StrongContemporary literature, government records, military documents, statistical series and later historical studies document gyunabe culture, official promotion, military demand, imports and wartime rationing.
Food identification
StrongBeef, pork, game, whale, rabbit and fish substitutes are explicitly named in historical and institutional sources.
Dating
StrongThe 1871–1872 publication of Aguranabe and the 1872 public association of Emperor Meiji with beef are securely dated, but commercial gyunabe activity began earlier.
Preparation method
ModerateSources describe gyunabe as simmered beef seasoned to Japanese tastes, but ingredients and methods varied by restaurant, region and decade.
Geographic attribution
ModerateTokyo was a major center of policy, publishing and consumption, but Yokohama was crucial to the early beef trade and later change was national and imperial in scale.
Historical interpretation
ProbableThe evidence strongly supports increasing cultural legitimacy and institutional availability of meat. Treating meat as routine for the entire population by 1950 is an interpretation contradicted by low average consumption estimates and wartime scarcity.
Sources
- 1.Junzō Uchiyama (1992). San’ei-chō and Meat-Eating in Buddhist Edo. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 19(2–3), 299–303. doi:10.18874/jjrs.19.2-3.1992.299-303Primary archaeology
- 2.Kanagaki Robun (1871). Aguranabe: Ushimise zatsudan, ichimei Doronken. Seishidō, 1871–1872. ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I0000005089Historical primary source
- 3.Mariko Noma (2006). The Process of Accepting Meat in Modern Japan: Stewed Meatstands, Gyunabe and Western Food. The Journal of Agricultural History 40, 77–88. doi:10.18966/joah.40.0_77Scientific literature
- 4.Mariko Noma (2015). 帝国日本における青島肉・朝鮮牛の受容. The Journal of Agricultural History 49, 13–22. doi:10.18966/joah.49.0_13Scientific literature
- 5.Seiki Nakayama (1969). Long-Term Changes in Food Consumption in Japan. The Developing Economies 7(2). www.ide.go.jp/library/English/Publish/PeriodicalScientific literature
- 6.Japan Center for Asian Historical Records (n.d.). Food During Wartime. A Window into the Early Showa Period. www.jacar.go.jp/english/exhibition/shuhou-englisModern synthesis
Limitations
- moderatedescription
The statement that meat moved toward routine consumption by 1950 overstates national intake. Historical estimates show meat remained a very small caloric component before the war, declined sharply during 1943–1947 and rose substantially mainly after 1950.
- moderatedate start
The year 1872 is defensible as an official symbolic milestone, but the transition began earlier: a Yokohama gyunabe restaurant is reported in 1862, and Aguranabe documented the fashion in 1871.
- minorcoordinates
Tokyo is an important representative location but not a unique point of origin. Yokohama was central to the early beef trade, and military provisioning and imperial imports made the process geographically wider.
- minordescription
Calling pre-Meiji meat simply restricted or marginal requires qualification. Zooarchaeological evidence shows consumption of several mammals in Edo-period communities; the clearest Meiji discontinuity was the public normalization and expanded supply of beef.
