At the beginning of the Meiji Era, with the modernization, the Western food begun to enter the Japanese market. However, because of high prices, lack of ingredients, and especially due to mistranslations, the food prepared was often completely different from the original. This lead to the development of a completely new cuisine, called yōshoku, “Western food".
One of the dishes of this new cuisine appeared in Kyoto at the beginning of 1900, made with the same principles as okonomiyaki. It was called issen yōshoku, meaning “1-sen Western food", and since 1 sen was 1⁄100 yen, as the name suggests, it was a kind of very cheap food, made of wheat flour and chopped green onion served with Worcester sauce.
A restaurant launched 30 years ago in Kyoto, named Issen Yoshoku, serves the menu from that period, of course with a largely improved range of ingredients, such as scallions, egg, thinly sliced pork, konnyaku, beef, fish cake, etc. Even so, it is still inexpensive, at about 650 yen. If you visit Gion, you will find it easily, because it draws attention with its funny statues…
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Yesterday’s Japan Photo:Koya-san Kakuban Slope |
