Beef in Japan

The entry for japan explains how the country was for a very long period cut off from western influences, affecting among other things the food and cookery of Japan. It was in the middle of the 19th century and particularly at the time of the Meiji Restoration, that the situation with regard to beef began to be transformed. Previously, cattle in Japan were maintained as draught animals, and for manure and for aesthetic purposes. The orginal draught cattle of Japan consisted of what are called the Wagyu breeds, of which (and many other pertinent matters) Valerie Porter (1991) gives an excellent account. When it was possible to import foreign breeds of cattle in the latter part of the 19th century, cross-breeding began and led to the establishment of various crossbred breeds, of which the one known as ‘Japanese black’ became and remains dominant. It was in the 1850s that importation of foreign cattle and other products began to be possible, but the climactic year for this process of change was 1868 when Emperor Meiji came to power. His attitude was formally expressed in a statement which he released in 1873: ‘His Imperial Highness graciously considers the taboo [against meat] to be an unreasonable tradition.’