Piece image
Image by: Roger Shimomura 

Weenie Royale; The Impact of the Internment on Japanese Cooking in America

From: The Kitchen Sisters
Series: Hidden Kitchens
Length: 09:18

After Pearl Harbor, about 120,000 Japanese Americans were uprooted and forced to live for years in remote federal camps around the country. The upheaval of internment changed the traditional Japanese diet. Read the full description.

Rogershimomura-weiners_small

This historical Hidden Kitchen comes from the memories and kitchens of the Japanese Americans uprooted from the west coat and forcibly relocated inland  after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In camps like Manzaner, Topaz, Tule Lake some 120,000 internees lived for four years in remote and desolate locations—their traditional food replaced by US government commodities and war surplus—hotdogs, ketchup, spam, potatoes—changing the traditional Japanese diet and family table. 

To hear the full audio, sign up for a free PRX account or log in.

Also in the Hidden Kitchens series

Piece image

Hidden Kitchens: The Raw & The Cooked (54:56)
From: The Kitchen Sisters

An hour-long journey into the world of clandestine cooking, kitchen rituals and traditions. Tales of kitchens that suddenly pop up, kitchens that stay underground to survive, ...
Piece image

Hidden Kitchen Mama (08:23)
From: The Kitchen Sisters

Mothers and kitchens. The food they cooked or didn’t. The stories they told or couldn’t. In honor of Mother’s Day we linger in the kitchen.
Piece image

The Birth of the Frito (07:19)
From: The Kitchen Sisters

The secret saga of a Texas corn chip, and C.E. Doolin, the can-do kitchen visionary behind it. The Kitchen Sisters travel to Dallas and discover another Texas hidden kitchen story.
Piece image

Sugar in the Milk: A Parsi Kitchen Story (08:56)
From: The Kitchen Sisters

Niloufer Ichaporia King lives in a house with 3 kitchen. She goes to 6 farmer's markets a week. She is an anthropologist, a kitchen botanist, a one-of-a-kind cook, a Parsi ...
Piece image

Broncos & Boudin: The Angola Prison Rodeo (07:26)
From: The Kitchen Sisters

Hidden Kitchens travels to the Louisiana State Penitentiary and the world of unexpected, below-the-radar, down-home convict cooking at the Angola Prison Rodeo. The event, ...
Piece image

The Sheepherder's Ball: Hidden Basque Kitchens (08:10)
From: The Kitchen Sisters

In the last century, Basque people fleeing Francisco Franco's dictatorship flocked to America, herding sheep across the West. "Hidden Kitchens" explores the world of Basque ...
Piece image

Garden Allotments: A London Kitchen Vision (06:49)
From: The Kitchen Sisters

Hidden Kitchens travels to London to explore the old and endangered tradition of Allotments, urban communal garden plots wedged in between buildings, planted in abandoned ...
Piece image

The Birth of Rice-A-Roni (07:43)
From: The Kitchen Sisters

The worlds of a young Canadian immigrant, an Italian pasta-making family, and a 70-year-old Armenian woman converge in this story of the creation of "The San Francisco Treat."
Caption: George Washington's Chef, Hercules

Black Chefs, White House (06:55)
From: The Kitchen Sisters

Hidden Kitchens explores the food of the founding fathers through the stories of Hercules and James Hemings, enslaved chefs of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and ...
Piece image

Hidden Kitchens Texas (59:00)
From: The Kitchen Sisters

Hidden Kitchens Texas, a new hour of lively, sound-rich stories from Peabody Award-winning producers, The Kitchen Sisters, KUT Austin, and NPR. Hosts Willie Nelson and ...

Piece Description

This historical Hidden Kitchen comes from the memories and kitchens of the Japanese Americans uprooted from the west coat and forcibly relocated inland  after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In camps like Manzaner, Topaz, Tule Lake some 120,000 internees lived for four years in remote and desolate locations—their traditional food replaced by US government commodities and war surplus—hotdogs, ketchup, spam, potatoes—changing the traditional Japanese diet and family table. 

1 Comment Atom Feed

Caption: PRX default User image

Effect of War on Japanese Diet

Great documentary work! Consider for a follow-up story: How did WWII and the American occupation of Japan effect the Japanese diet? Japan was once a basically vegetarian and pescatarian country, but now beef and pork seem to be in everything. McDonalds is overflowing with customers on Sunday morning. I've been eating bread and cheese for the past couple days from a recent shopping run to Costco. Ever tried spam or hamburger sushi? I hadn't until I came to Japan. In short, the American influence on the diet seems vast. It would be very interesting to obtain some interviews in Japan on this topic to see how the diet has evolved.

Intro and Outro

INTRO:

Hidden Kitches takes us back to a corner of America's past — the WWII internment camps where more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent, most American citizens, were incarcerated without trial for the duration of the war. The Kitchen Sisters, producers Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, explore the impact of the internment on Japanese cooking and culture in America in a story they call "Weenie Royale".

OUTRO:

Hidden Kitchens is produced by The Kitchen Sisters and mixed by Jim Mc Kee.