Thought to have been introduced by Anglo-Indian officers in the Royal Navy in the 1800s, the dish has since spiralled into a national obsession. The sailors aboard the navy vessel Hashidate know what’s for lunch long before the telltale aromas escape from the galley.
Yosuke Oyama, the ship’s chef, has been up since dawn, softening onions and occasionally stirring a pot of chicken stock that has been simmering for several hours. He slices carrots and potatoes, places strips of beef on a tray and performs a quick inventory of the other ingredients – among them a selection of spices, apple puree, ginger and garlic and, for extra umami, a red wine and honey reduction.
After a chorus of “Itadakimasu” – bon appétit – the mess deck is silent except for the appreciative noises made by the ravenous men and women of Japan’s maritime self-defence forces (SDF). “The crew love hamburgers, steak, sushi and ramen … they eat a lot like children,” jokes Oyama, a navy chef for three decades who is more accustomed to cooking for up to 500 sailors at a time. “And curry is always a winner.”
With each spoonful, they are upholding a tradition of eating curry for lunch every Friday – once a way to track the passage of time on long voyages – and keeping rival SDF vessels around Japan on their culinary toes as they continue their search for the perfect curry recipe. Despite its south Asian origins, it’s no exaggeration to describe curry as Japan’s de facto national dish: a soupy, mild version beloved of schoolchildren and office workers, and generations of SDF personnel for whom kaigun kare – or navy curry – is a source of fierce pride as well as sustenance.
Tradition dictates that Yokosuka curry – one of many variations on the navy curry theme – must be accompanied by salad, pickles and a glass of milk for nutritional balance. As Japan expanded its influence in Asia in the late 1800s, large numbers of soldiers fell ill or died from beriberi, a vitamin B1 deficiency linked to their diet, which largely comprised plain white rice. The solution came in the form of curry powder thought to have been introduced by Anglo-Indian officers in the Royal Navy who were among the first westerners to come into contact with Japan after Commodore Perry’s “black ships” forced it to end centuries of sakoku “locked country” isolation in the 1850s.
Curry powder, it turned out, contained enough vitamin B1 to keep soldiers and sailors healthy. Beriberi cases plummeted, and military personnel quickly developed a taste for anglicised curry and rice, made with meat and vegetables and a flour-thickened sauce that was less likely to splash around in rough seas. It didn’t take long for curry to establish a loyal following among civilians. The first Japanese recipe for curry was published in 1872, and restaurants began serving it five years later, according to Japanese food writer Makiko Itoh. In 1908, a recipe for curry appeared in the Navy Cooking Reference Book.
