Latest / POST-WHATEVER with Ken Nishikawa
Confusion Cuisine, or How Japan Learned to Love Beef
For over a thousand years, eating beef in Japan was considered spiritually ruinous — the sort of thing that got you some very serious side-eye from the neighbours, if not outright bad karma. Then, in 1872, the Emperor sat down and ate a piece of it on purpose, as an act of government policy. A group of armed monks were, understandably, not thrilled about this and stormed the Imperial Palace to say so. It did not end well for the monks.
This week on Post-Whatever, we trace how that spectacularly awkward beginning somehow led to katsu curry, omurice, and sukiyaki — dishes now so thoroughly…
The skinny
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