Hey, Tony here. Just a quick announcement before we get started. I started a Patreon page. So in case you're not aware, Patreon is this wonderful platform that allows you to support creators you enjoy. So you can pledge a certain amount of money every month to make sure that these creators are able to keep producing what they're doing. In my case, my page is for japanco.com, anything related to japanco.com. That includes this podcast, Japan Station. That includes Ichimon Japan, my other podcast. And of course, just anything japanco.com related. Like I said, you can go to japanco.com/patreonpatrion. The minimum pledge is $2 a month. In exchange, you're going to get access to special blog posts. I'm going to be making announcements for upcoming episodes there before I do anywhere else. And I'm about to reveal a special $5 tier. So if you pledge $5 a month or more, then you're going to get access to something really fun and special that I'm working on at the moment. I will be revealing more details very soon. So stay tuned for that. I already have one patron, the wonderful Robbie. Thank you so, so much for your support. Robbie, you are the number one japanco fan right now. So thanks again. So if you want to jump on the bandwagon and see what Robbie's enjoying over there at the Patreon page, go ahead and do that if you can afford to do so. I would greatly, greatly appreciate it. There's also cannibalism. So that's the word for when chickens kill each other. And chickens tend to have hierarchy or there are some more boss chickens that will go around and attack other chickens. And so that's the leading cause of death for Miyazaki Chitokko. Wow. I'm an old 70 day human right in this. I'm an old 80s man. I'm a kid. I'm a 70. I'm not going to address that directly today. That is a topic for another day. And I'm pretty sure I will address it at some point, but just not today. For the time being, all I'm going to say is I hope you are well. And I hope this content, this episode does a little bit to distract you from the craziness that's going on the world. My thoughts are with you and you know, we just got to keep on chugging along doing our best. Alright, so let's talk about chickens. Alright, let's get serious. So my guest today is Dr. Benjamin Shreger. Currently, he's a postdoctoral researcher at Kyoto University's Graduate School of Agriculture. But in May of 2019, he graduated with a PhD from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. And that's, well, that's actually how I came to know about him because I did go to the University of Hawaii. And so I still, you know, keep track of what's going on over there. And then I went to one of his presentations probably a year before this interview because I talked to him in May of 2019. And so I knew I wanted to talk to him. So that was a weird tangent. Anyway. So then he, his PhD focused on the chicken industry in Japan. And which is a fascinating topic, right? Like you just, that's not something that people talk about daily basis, right? But one area that he particularly focused on was the topic of jidori. So jidori is this type of artisanal chicken. Sometimes it's described as the Kobe beef of chicken, right? Because it's super high quality, expensive. You know, sometimes it's said that it tastes even better than regular chicken. But basically, jidori is written using the characters for place and chicken, okay? G and dodi, which by itself would be for now chi and tori, but that's a whole other thing that I'm not going to get into. But jidori, so it's a kind of locally produced artisanal chicken. But there's quite a bit more to the topic than just that, right? So in 1999, the Japanese government took this term and said, "Yes, this term exists, and it's probably existed for quite a while, but we're going to make these strict regulations for what type of chicken can qualify as jidori." Right? So for over 20 years now, there have been these strict regulations, for something to be called jidori, it has to have an enclosure. It must be at least this big, or only a certain amount of chickens can be within the enclosure at any one time. So these are much stricter than the regulations that you would find for broiler chicken, which is basically the mass produced industrial chicken. So this is high quality artisanal locally produced chicken, and there are many, many types of brands of jidori across Japan. So Ben spent two years in Japan from 2015 to 2017 doing research on this topic, and he particularly focused on Miyazaki Jitoko, which is one brand of jidori that is in Miyazaki prefecture. That's the hub of Miyazaki Jitoko. It's one of the stricter brands. So one of the perhaps more expensive, harder to produce brands of jidori. As you can imagine, this is something challenging for chicken farmers, for chicken breeders? I guess you would say, not farmers breeders. Because it's more expensive, it takes more money to produce a chicken, and then you have to convince somebody to buy your chicken, which is more expensive than the cheap chicken. So we talk about all this stuff, plus the history of chicken production in Japan, and we talk a little bit about Hawaii too, because we were both in Hawaii. We were actually very near the office where I work. So anyway, if you want to find out more about the topic of jidori, you can go check out an article that we ran in the February March 2020 issue of Wasabi Magazine. That's where I work. I'm going to include a link in the show notes. The article is titled "What is jidori?" And it summarizes, well, a lot of the topics that we talked about today, plus a few extra things, in a very concise, easy to understand way. Ben really helped us out a lot with that article, because this is a complex topic, but it's also really, really interesting and totally eye-opening topic. So here we go. Here's my conversation with Dr. Benjamin Schreger. The next stop is Japan Station. The doors on the right side will open. So something I found interesting was the whole history. There's a history component of chicken being around in part of Japanese culture since the Kojiki. Could you explain that a little bit? Because chicken seems like a foreign thing, I think, to most people. It seems like this thing that was imported, but actually chicken have been around for a very, very, very long time in Japan. Yeah, so chicken are an ancient companion species in Japan. So like you mentioned, they're featured in the Kojiki, which is the oldest known Japanese texts. And they've come up in poetry, and history, and stories. And they're also in the oldest known cookbook, the Namban Yorishou. Yeah, the Barbarians cookbook, which is the first cookbook that has meat and eggs in it. And the exact origins of that are a bit unclear, but even from that time there was a little bit of an association of chicken meat with western cuisine. And that becomes much more pronounced later after World War II. And in the 1960s and '70s when American models of producing industrial chicken start to spread throughout Japan. And of course, that's especially true with KFC. Yeah. And around when is that the cookbook from? The cookbook, I believe, is from the 17th, 16th, I think 17th century. So Eric Rath has a book, Food and Fantasy. Yeah. And he writes at length about that. Hmm, interesting. I'd never heard of it. The Namban immediately makes me think of chicken Namban. Which is one of my favorite chicken dishes. So chicken Namban is a dish that originated in Miyazaki prefecture, which is where I did my research. And there are two different restaurants that claim to have invented it. But it's like after World War II and kind of it's like a fried chicken fried with egg and then topped with a sweet tartar sauce. Yeah, it's like a tartar sauce. And there's like always like different like variations on some are more vinegri, some are more really like tartar sauce. And yeah, wherever you go, they kind of put their own take on it. But I unfortunately haven't been able to go to Miyazaki.
so I could try the quote unquote authentic one. So have you, I assume you probably have? - Oh, of course, yeah. So even though I research about it, I eat chicken. One of the interesting things about chicken namban that connects with my research is that actually lots of people say that the broiler chicken, the industrial chicken tastes better than the artisan g-dirty chicken. - Interesting. - Yeah, and part of that is because people are used to the soft, juicy, non-distinctive flavor of broiler chicken. And so also for fried chicken, people will say that people in the chicken industry and in the g-dirty industry will say, well, you know, that's not really accentuating the unique taste profile of g-dirty. So they recommend serving this fancier artisan chicken meat in different ways. - Interesting. So, okay, so broiler chicken is the general, I mean, it's the mass produced chicken, so to speak, right? That we eat most days, right? But then, would you say that that's accurate? I mean, I'm sure you can give it with more nuanced explanation of that. But how does that, what is the difference between that and g-dirty? What is g-dirty? What is the broiler thing? - Right. So I guess it's best we talk about it in the Japanese context. Broiler chicken would be like the standard, cheap chicken meat and imported chicken meat is also broiler chicken, something from Brazil. - Okay. - And then g-dirty sets certain standards. So the chicken have to be at least half native breeds and there are certain limits on how tightly they, how much space they need to have per bird and how long they live. And different prefectures have developed different brands of g-dirty. So depending on the brand of g-dirty, those standards can be more strict or less strict. So for example, Awa Odori, which is the largest g-dirty brand, those chickens live for 75 days. And by comparison, Miyazaki Chitoko, which I studied, those chickens live for 120 days if they're roosters and 150 days if they're hens. And there's also more space per bird for Miyazaki Chitoko than for Awa Odori. So it always becomes tricky to start to connect the taste of what you're eating to these brands. And the taste for chicken is pretty subtle. And most people, if you're like out at a restaurant, you're not focusing very intently on the texture or the quality of the fat and what you're eating. So that's one of the challenges for the more strict brands of g-dirty. How do they distinguish what they're doing from other brands of g-dirty and from industrial chicken, industrial boiler chicken? To give an example, like Miyazaki Chitoko in a supermarket, which you can rarely find it there. But if you do, it's about five times more expensive than the cheap broiler chicken option. So for lots of people, they would just see that and it's like sticker shock. They're not gonna pay that much more for chicken, which they think of as a cheap commodity. And other people, it's like a special occasion. So if you want to celebrate or something, you can go for the g-dirty instead of just the normal chicken. - Right. So how do the enclosure sizes and that kind of stuff compare to a broiler chicken farm, for example? 'Cause like you mentioned earlier, how the meat might be softer on a broiler, is that because they're more enclosed in tiny cages versus more open, free range kind of thing? - So I never saw any broiler chickens raised in battery cages. I got to visit a number of farms and I had, that is sometimes the practice for layers. So for industrial chickens laying eggs. And so what you have instead, you can think of it as like stocking density. That's the industry term. But that basically means like per square foot, how many birds do you have? And the kind of typical broiler chicken number is 15 chickens per square meter. And for g-dirty, the limit is 10 chickens per square meter. Miyazaki Chitokko is two chickens per square meter. - Wow. - One of the challenges of these kind of statistics is that unless you have a reference point, it's hard to gauge what that means for the life of the chicken. Like you kind of can like imagine more chickens in less space. How does that actually affect their quality of life? So getting back, I guess to the question of the size of the enclosures, a typical broiler chicken enclosure would have like 10,000 chickens in it. And a typical g-dirty enclosure for Miyazaki Chitokko has a thousand. - Wow. So obviously part of that is better quality of life for the chicken, right? But that makes it much more difficult to produce for the farmers at the same time, right? - Yeah, you're hitting on some of the, the challenges of like if you're producing artisan chicken and more space they can run around. So that's the work for when chickens kill each other. - Wow. So one of the things that growers try to do is they try and reduce stress for the birds. And stress is something that growers of all stripes will focus on because when birds are stressed, it's bad for them. But yeah, having more space for bird is a good thing. And when I visit a farm and I see chickens running around or there's grass and stuff, it feels better from like a human perspective of how you would like chickens to be. But I also think that from an animal welfare perspective, there's some objective criteria where it is better. So. - So, okay, so we have Miyazaki. Miyazaki seems to be on the upper end of like good conditions for chicken compared to even other jidori chicken, right? Or are there even more that like they live longer have bigger spaces? - Yeah, Miyazaki Chitokko has distinguished itself as a brand by having very stringent standards. So, historically, the three big jidori in Japan were Satsuma Dori from Kagoshima, Hinae Dori from Iwate, and Nagoya Kochiin from ICH prefecture. So, based on each of these three breeds, which they're called natural monument or Tennen Kinembutsu, there are brands. And these ones are pretty stringent. And they were actually each of these were the top producing brands of jidori. Until the government introduced a national standard, which ended up kind of benefiting more industrial brands of jidori. So, that's the point when Awao Dori production basically doubled, was after the standard was introduced. - So, I'm really interested in the, you talk about like the samurai farmers and that stuff going into the Meiji period and onwards in just realization. But before we get to that, I'm curious. So, what are these chicken breeds? Like they're using native species, what is a native species chicken breed? Like I saw one with a long tail or something like that, right? - Yeah, I'm also interested. - I think people have no idea about this intricate like crossbreeding of Japanese chickens that's going on. Like could you give a little bit of background about that? Like what is this like heritage like chicken breed or all that stuff? - Sure. - Yeah, how long do we have? (laughing)
So yeah, so when when I first started to research chicken in Japan, I didn't know about this either, right? And I knew very little about Gidori. As I started to research about Gidori, I kept seeing brands touting their use of natural monument chickens. So natural monument is a standard that the Japanese government introduced as a conservation measure in the early 20th century. And this was actually adopted from a German conservation system. So the first chicken to be designated natural monument was the long the chicken with the long tail feathers, which is called Awa Odori, sometimes Yokohama in English. Quick correction. So after the interview, Ben realized that he had mispoken here. He said Awa Odori, but he meant to say Oonaga Odori. So Oonaga Odori is this chicken with the long tail. Literally, the name means long tailed chicken. And when we say long tail, we really really mean long tail, because apparently from what I was able to find, these tails typically measure over 1.5 meters. That's like over five feet. And I was looking on the Japanese language Wikipedia page for the Oonaga Dori. And I saw that there are records of Oonaga Dori with tails that are over 10 meters. For example, there was one in 1974 that got recorded as having a 13 meter long tail. That is over 40 feet. Which is ridiculous, right? Apparently more recently, these tails are not quite as long. I guess through breeding, they just have made them shorter. But if you know where they look, you can still find Oonaga Dori, which have really, really, really long tails. Apparently they're not used for consumption. They're mainly like an ornamental species. I guess breeders just like them. They have this, you know, history and this kind of prestige to them. So I guess people just like them and they keep them and they breed them. And yeah, so they're around somewhere. If you know where to look, I guess you should ask that. But you can actually go see these chickens with super, super long tails in Japan. So again, Oonaga Dori. But anyway, let's get back to the conversation with Ben. And it's not really until the 1930s that most chickens get designated. So part of the way that I've interpreted this is that due to the hardships of World War II, and along with rising nationalism, lots of breeds, not just chicken breeds, but lots of breeds are designated as natural monument. So 15 of the 17 chickens that are natural monument chickens were designated during this about 10, 12 year period around World War II. So what that means like 60 years later though, is that these chickens have become identified as the iconic Japanese chickens. And for like Miyazaki Jitokko, it's a bit unclear why exactly Jitokko was designated over many other chickens with short legs. Just kind of one of the distinguishing features of Jitokko. And actually from this magazine that I relied on a lot, Niyo Torino Kenkyu, the picture that designates that's like, oh, we're so excited that this chicken is designated natural monument. It's actually not a picture of Jitokko. It's a different chicken. So I had a fun time contacting Yano Sensei, who is in Tokyo, and he's also researching about chickens. I think this is Jisuri Natchitokko, and then he sent me a picture of Jisuri, and you as I guess you are correct, I think. Interesting. Okay, so going back to the whole samurai, chicken farming used to be a quote unquote samurai thing very early on, right? And then industrial
ization came in and severely totally changed the way things were done. Right? Yeah, so it's interesting to me how chicken became associated with samurai. So I haven't dug too deep into this end of Edo Meiji transition. It's history, like that deep Japanese archival research is not my specialty. But it seems like there is a big issue for samurai, especially when they're no longer needed as a part of the military. And there were a lot of samurai in IT prefecture around Nagoya. And some of them, and I mentioned a few in my article in Japanese studies, they organized around promoting chicken husbandry as a business. And so before then, chickens were just kind of like around as a companion species. It's unclear how much people really saw them as a food source, as opposed to kind of like providing, you know, being important for cultural reasons, like cock fighting or divining, or, you know, to as an alarm clock also has mentioned. So an industry formed, you know, people started be like, look, you can grow, you can raise 300 chicken at a time, you can make this much money by selling the eggs and the meat and the initial industry forms in IT prefecture around Nagoya. And that's part of the reason why the Nagoya coaching became a famous breed because there were lots of people doing research on chickens in IT, trying to use Western strategies for selective improvement and incorporating other breeds into the native breeds. So the Nagoya with the coaching. So were there people like, you know, because when the transition to Meiji came around, they sent like a whole bunch of people out to the West and to Europe to like bring back information and learn about how people were doing all this stuff. And, you know, foreigners were coming, they were bringing people over to Japan. Like, was that happening with the chicken industry around that time? Do you know? Yeah, it was happening. Although exactly who went where? How granular can you get with the details? But one of the things about Gidori and the definition of a native heirloom breed is that it has to have been established in Japan prior to the Meiji era. So there are a handful of breeds such as the Qshu Road Island Red that were established in Japan prior to this era. So even though they're Western breeds, they're considered native to Japan. I mean, that just kind of goes to show how in order to create this like native foreign binary, you have to kind of create an artificial distinction at some point. Interesting. So, okay. So then, chicken starts to move away from just like a thing that people would take care of. They'd have some chickens at home. And then that starts to move into, you know, more industrialized sorts of production methods through like shifts in government policies and that kind of stuff. Like, is that how it works? Yeah. So to give the quick summary up to like the influence of the Western breeds, there was like a chickens as a side job policy. And like the 1910s, 1920s where they're like, we just need people to have chickens on their farm. And then they're going to have this extra source of protein, extra source of income. And the 1920s, the government shifts its policy in part in response to eggs that were being imported from China. So they saw this as kind of geopolitical threat or they're losing money to China and they should instead support domestic industries. And at that time, animal husbandry was kind of like cutting edge technology. So how do you have industrial operations? Was something that the Japanese government was trying to implement from top down. But then in the lead up to World War Two, this kind of large scale approach stopped being so feasible. They couldn't rely on imported grains. And then with the turmoil of World War Two, that just became impossible. So more self-sufficient strategies called grass chickens were promoted by the government and lots of organizations formed around
this. And that was in place until about the late 1950s. So actually there was a bit of like a resurgence of everyone having farms or not farms, everyone having like chickens on their farms in rural Japan and chickens show up in a lot of like nostalgic depictions of this era of 1960s and the start of rapid growth. And then we get to the influence of western breeds. So I interviewed people who had firsthand experience with the western breeds entering Japan in the early 1960s. And so prior to then lots of people use dual use chickens. So they were meant for both egg and meat production. But then meat and egg specific chickens came in and this enabled the industry to split. And one person who I interviewed, another person in a book, they described this as the black shit. Like Matthew Perry, right? Commodore Perry. Yeah. For the chicken industry, it was that much of a seismic event. So was it seen as kind of an invasion or like what was the take on it? Like was that a negative comparison? You know that's hard for me to say. I think it depends on where people were at in the industry. But basically it made things get bigger quicker. Yeah. So for lots of small scale hatcheries, they either had to kind of join into a contract with a large western breeder. Otherwise they weren't going to be able to supply people with chickens that were efficient enough to stay in business. So yeah, it had a pretty dramatic impact. But people in the industry are generally pretty pro growth and pro larger scale. So is it around this time when chicken production starts to focus in the Q issue area and Miyazaki Kawashima and all that area or was that already happening? That was in the early 1960s when those breeds came in. And it's in the late 1970s, 1980s, when production shifts from around the urban periphery or around the urban fridges to the rural periphery. So Miyazaki prefecture, Kawashima prefecture, and Iwate prefecture emerged as the three leading prefectures for chicken meat production. And they've since remained so. So then you also interestingly, just because we were talking about the 60s, it reminded me of something I was reading in the dissertation. But Wasoku, like Japanese cuisine, as we know it, a lot of it, you mentioned how it comes from the 60s, right? Like that was, like we have this image of Wasoku that even like the Japanese government has tried to promote, right? Like this is what Wasoku is, but a lot of it is like fairly modern. Like a lot of these things including chicken, like this whole production is not as old as we think it is. Yeah. Yeah, the discourses of cuisine are something that I find really fascinating. And a lot of people have been writing about Japanese cuisine, especially with the UNESCO World Heritage Certification of Wasoku as a world intangible cultural heritage. So exactly at what point Wasoku emerges as a thing is a bit unclear. And I think what you're referencing, I, yeah, it was really exciting Eric Rad. I think so, yeah. Yeah, he's done really fascinating work on the history of cuisine in Japan and how ideas of regional cuisine are also a part of a top-down strategy. That's something that I've been looking at and is definitely happening with Gidoji. So you have the central government promoting Japanese food, promoting local food. And as a part of that, there are all sorts of regional, prefectural, local breeds and varieties of food that become really imbued as being better than the generic industrial option. Yeah. And I think Japan, perhaps more so than a lot of other places, like every prefecture and pretty much any city almost has their own thing, right? Like you go there, you have to eat this thing. This is the Maybootsu. Like this is what everybody eats, right? And I guess chicken has become a thing, of course, in Miyazaki. And in really Kyushu, in a lot of places in Kyushu, right? Like Oita, we were just talking about that earlier, right? With the Tori-ten and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And Oita, just not too long ago, introduced its own brand of Gidoji. Oh, okay. So, yeah, it's really fascinating the regional variation of these, yeah, there are all sorts of Japanese words for these kind of like regional specialty products. Yeah. And like, for example, Kit Kat develops like the Wasabi from Shizuoka or all these different specialty products where you go to the area, then you have to try this thing. Right. So some of these products have really long histories in the region. One of the things that's especially fun about Gidoji is you can trace like how did they create this tradition? When did it happen? How long has it been there? And you can kind of see it being introduced is like, you know, even for Miyazaki, professional researchers were like, hey, we got to get into this Gidoji game. We've done this for beef. We've done this for pork. We've helped to introduce the the breed that will help our growers. And now we need to do this for chicken. So, has this concentration of chicken in, for example, Miyazaki been beneficial to the area? Would you say or do you, is it one of those complicated things that you're not quite sure about? Yeah. Well, if you write a dissertation on something, I guess it gets too complicated. It's, you know, it's worth distinguishing between the industrial boiler chicken industry and the Gidoji Miyazaki Chitokko. And they're two totally different food systems and way of organizing things. So, the boiler chicken is just a massive scale. Like, Gidoji only accounts for about 1% of overall chicken consumption in Japan. And Miyazaki Chitokko is like 8 or 9% of overall Gidoji production. So, maybe like half a million, 700,000 chickens a year, somewhere in between there. So, there's like 667 million chicken produced in Japan. And a significant amount of that comes from Miyazaki as one of the leading prefectures. And yeah, the grains are imported, they're processed. And as a part of my research, I tried to look at the different ways that the conditions of production impact Miyazaki. So, not just where the chickens are raised, but also I went to slaughterhouse. I had unique access that I don't think I would have had if I was doing similar research in the US. So, I was able to bring my camera into these places, take photos. I really enjoyed being able to do that. There were still things that I was not able to research, that I was curious about and think are important. For example, the use of foreign workers through the trainee program. So, slaughterhouses employ the maximum amount that they're allowed by law, which I believe is about 5% of their workforce. So, you do have these foreign pop, you know, foreign workers that come in and there are definite questions about that system. It seems very
problematic. But as a researcher, it's important too that I think about the impact of what me being in that space as a researcher would do. So if I were to ask for an introduction by a high level executive to a foreign worker, that would introduce lots of problematic power dynamics. And so I was careful to not do that. Hopefully in the future, this is something that I can look at more. And one of the really fun things about my research is not many people are researching this topic. And so some people who are researching topics that have a lot of interest, they encounter different challenges of like people, you know, like researcher fatigue. But for me, people were genuinely interested. Like, why is this guy here doing a dissertation research on chicken? And so I was able to get a lot of access as a part of that. I also was supported in my research by the Crown Prince Akihito scholarship. Yeah, I was curious about that. You got to meet the emperor too, right? Yeah, that was a big honor. And so when I told people, you know, I'm here doing research and I'm going to get to meet the emperor or have met the emperor as a part of it, that also would open up doors. And so people were, what is this guy doing? You know, I got to talk about talking chicken with the emperor and empress. So what did he ask you like about your research? Like what are you doing? Or did he already know? And he said some specific question. Yeah, they, so a little bit about the scholarship. Yeah, it's a community-backed scholarship where one graduate student from the University of Hawaii can go to Japan for research. And one graduate student from Japan comes to the University of Hawaii. And every year, these students get to go have an audience with the emperor. And so, yeah, I went. We had a car. It goes into the imperial residence. I was very nervous. And yeah, the emperor and empress, we wrote a little bit of a biography about ourselves and our research. And the emperor immediately asked me about avian influenza outbreaks in Miyazaki. And so, you know, that was something I hadn't looked at very closely. But kind of after that encounter, I was like, well, if the emperor is asking me about it, I should not be scared to look more closely into this topic. And the empress asked me about like different breeds of chicken and how I'm comparing boiler and gidorti. So they paid close attention. That's wonderful. To my research, it was a very positive experience. That's great that they took the time and actually, you know, came up with a thoughtful question like that actually inspired much of the rest of your research because a lot of the focus of like the dissertation and the presentation that I watched is right. That balance between like people worrying about things like avian influenza health scares and then chicken production and how that interacts with these small farmers that are trying to make a living, right? Yeah. A big question I'm looking at is how the conditions of production connect with consumer practices. And to look at that, I emphasize social anxiety and social trust. So, avian influenza is a big source of social anxiety. And one that's not such a big source of social anxiety, but I just find fascinating is chicken sashimi and raw chicken, which is a specialty in Miyazaki prefecture. So going there as a researcher, I was not going to have much option except you know, you got to try this. This is our our special food. And fortunately, you know, some people get sick very easily from raw chicken. And I guess I have a luckier stomach because I didn't and I would have known if I had. Yeah. One thing that I remember you mentioning is you went to, well, you did like focus groups kind of things like with people like what will do you ever think about, you know, food safety and that kind of thing. And one group of people that you you talked to was like, men learning how to cook, right? Yeah. That was really like kind of funny actually to me, but could you discuss that a little bit? Yeah. So I was doing focus groups. And the two rights, so and I called them conversations on everyday food. And so kind of the two groups of people that I was able to speak with were college students. So I would tell professors about my research and they would help to organize students to show up and do a focus group. And the other was kind of like women that were in these cooking groups, many of whom were retirees, or not necessarily cooking groups, food related groups. But as I was looking at my data, I realized that I did not have many men and especially men that were like working. And you know, I wasn't able to get a very good cross-section of like working men, right? One of the obvious reasons for this is that women in Japan and in general are more active for preparing food, shopping for food and making it. And so this focus group that I went to in Tokyo was for retired men who wanted to learn how to cook. And it was very cute. They were trying their best. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, there were a few, yeah, there was one person in Miyazaki who was similarly like this, but it was like a specifically men's cooking group. And you know, there is an issue for retired men who like worked so hard through the bubble years. They retire. And like, what are they supposed to do now? Like so much of their life has been organized around the company. And I remember in that focus group, I asked the question like, well, hey, did you ever think to cook? Were you ever going to prepare food back in the day? And one man was like, you know, I get home at eight or nine every night. How would I ever cook? Yeah. And that made sense to me. Sure, yeah. So, yeah, that was a really, really interesting focus group that I did. It's funny. Like you hear Japanese married women say, oh, my husband can't take care of himself. If I were to leave like on a vacation for a week, like he'd die. I hear these stories, right? But that's actually a thing because a lot of them have worked so much that they never have that. They're never putting that situation that they have to like actually defend for themselves, right? Yeah. I mean, there's, and it's, I try and approach it and think about having a bit of empathy for these people. Like, it's got to be some people are able to smoothly transition. But for others, it's really hard to think about like what are the things when you're not just focusing on work. Yeah. And they have to like, I think relearn a lot of stuff. I don't know. I don't study salary men, culture so much. It's pretty fascinating. Yeah. It's something that I saw really interesting that I didn't get a chance to look at. But you did like a YouTube series or something like that related to your research, right? I did. Yeah. I didn't get a chance to watch it. Could you give me an idea like what did you do in that series? Yeah. So there are three farmers and three restaurants that I kind of profile. Yeah, it would be great. Maybe we could put a link. Yeah, I'll put a show note in the show notes. I'll put the videos there. I want to check it out. Yeah. But so as I
I was doing my research and focusing on G-dori from Miyazaki, Miyazaki Tzokko. One of the big things that the people in the industry wanted was they wanted to get their brand out. They wanted people to understand what's the difference between Miyazaki Tzokko and industrial boiler chicken or why should you eat it. I got really unique access to these farms and stuff. Near the end of my research, I thought that a cool way that I could give back to these people and the community that has supported me would be to make some videos profiling them. The only problem is I have no experience doing this. No experience shooting video, editing video. I don't have super upbeat music and enthusiasm and what typical YouTubers would do. Hey guys, it's the best chicken ever. That's also something that they can use to share about their research and it shows international interests in what they're doing. I think this idea of G-dori, because I've lived in Japan and I would go to Izakaya, go to these restaurants where you see G-dori, you see that and you wonder what is this and then I take the time to figure out what it is, ask people. But the average person does no idea about this. They don't know what G-dori is, they've never heard of it. I think farmers need that. There's this language barrier that people outside of Japan, they don't know about this and then the farmers don't have a way to get it out to them. Yeah, totally. One of the big academic theories that I was trying to push in my dissertation was the idea of food in a new dark age and that's the food systems have just gotten incredibly complex. The idea that even you can go back to the farm and understand what's happening is increasingly not true because for these complex systems, then you have to go back to the feed for chicken and where does that come or where did the lineage of the breeds come from and looking at ingredient labels and stuff and what are you supposed to worry about. And so there is this way that we become disconnected and it's not something necessarily that is easy to solve. I'm sorry I forgot. No, no, no. You're quiet. Yeah, that's, I think, no, you're basically hitting on it. Yeah. So for G-dori, so G, if I can break down the categories for G-dori, the G means place and Dori means chicken. So G-dori is place chicken but G-dori has many different meanings in Japanese. So it can mean wild chickens like we have here in Hawaii. It also refers to a specific breed of natural monument chicken which is the first chicken to enter Japan thousands of years ago. Do we know where that's from like from China or something or? Southeast Asia somewhere. And then it also can refer to tough chicken meat. And Miyazaki G-dori often means tough chicken and it can also refer to char broiled chicken. So even in izakaya, if it's not a chain izakaya, just like a local spot in Japan, sometimes they say G-dori but it doesn't mean this specific brand connotation. And part of the problem with this is the national government in 1999 introduced a standard called Japanese agricultural standard G-dori. And this made G-dori the basis for a standard but it had so many other meanings and uses so even recently there was a ruling against Skada nojo and the consumer affairs protection agency, I probably don't have that agency name exactly right, but they said that Skada nojo which is an izakaya chain that specializes in G-dori. They said that Skada nojo was misusing the word G-dori and deceiving consumers. Now they were using the industry standard practice which is you label G-dori on the menu when it's G-dori. But then if it doesn't have G-dori written that means it's broiler chicken. So for example if you're serving fried chicken or chicken non-bon and it doesn't say it's G-dori chicken non-bon then it's industrial chicken. All this gets super confusing right? Like your typical consumer to like think through these different traditions of G-dori and labeling and brands of G-dori. So I've done a super deep dive on chicken in Japan and I don't expect other people to do that or that they necessarily should have to. So yeah it's a tricky thing. Yeah it is, it is. Yeah it's just multiple meanings and like I said the language barrier is like hard enough but if you can't convey the information and easy to understand way then for example the tourist coming to Japan and he's like oh no it's just chicken. And in Hawaii here lots of restaurants sell G-dori. Do you know what that means? What does that mean here? I was asking you. I don't know what it means here. Do you know? Yeah I don't know. So it depends on the restaurant they're basically certifying that G-dori meets their standard of G-dori which could be anything. It could mean that it's free range, organic or just be used to invoke a Japanese flair. So have you like Skada nojo there's one right across the street right but it got changed into Minori but it's still operated by Skada nojo but they just changed the name. Have you been there do you know if they do like G-dori or some kind? Yeah I've been there and when I was doing my research in Miyazaki people kept saying like we're about to open a shop in Hawaii so you'll have to go there. I think they use special chicken. They looked into trying to. Important or something? Yeah could we have our special chicken raised in Hawaii and I think they use some kind of like special. I don't remember but I do think it's Hawaii chicken. Okay so local chicken. Yeah okay. Nice to be with you. Yeah and you know when you were mentioning the things you wanted to ask about you said one of the questions is like what chicken could people eat in Japan or what would kind of get at my research and for me Skada nojo is really interesting because they're trying to do a corporate farm to table approach and they're really emphasizing unique brands of G-dori. So there are some issues with this model but if you want to experience like a little bit of a fancier Isakaya Mio and keep an eye out for the way that these Skada nojo franchises are trying to like bring the deliciousness of rural Japan to the urban consumer that's a fun thing to do. So curious as we're wrapping up. So there's all these different breeds and there's broilers. Have you noticed a difference in taste in Miyazaki versus broiler versus Nagoya breed versus whatever? Do you know like can you identify stuff? Yeah. I mean I'm not going to like bite into a chicken be like hmm. Right. Like a sommelier. But yeah you can taste the difference between the broiler chicken and the more strict G-dori and even the last strict G-dori it tastes different. The kinds of words that descriptors that are used in Miyazaki.
in Japan are like the sweetness of the fat or the texture, like the responsiveness when you bite into it. - The hago tai, right? - That's it. (laughing) - I love that word. - Yeah, and I think it's really good. I mean, that was kind of one of the perks of doing this kind of research. I got to eat a lot of really delicious chicken. - So if people go down to Qtsu or Miyazaki specifically, what would you recommend to eat, what's something that you really enjoy? - Well, Sumi Miyaki, so char broiled chicken, is like the classic dish, and it's, you're not at risk of food poisoning, like you are with Tori Sashi, chicken Sashi mi, and it accentuates the flavor profile. But you know, one of the things about if you're trying to understand the difference in taste, is unless you do a side by side taste comparison, it's really hard to get the difference. So some restaurants that specialize in chicken, they'll have the same thing on the menu twice. - Oh. - So if you're really looking to do that, or you can buy it and prepare it yourself. - Right, right. - The same way. - Yeah, blindfolded taste test. (laughing) - But most people don't do that. - Of course, yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, thank you Ben. It was very interesting learning to buy chicken with you. - Yeah, thank you very much for having me on. I hope we didn't get too as of today. - No, I love this kind of stuff. I mean, who else is gonna talk about chicken, right? (laughing) No, thank you, thank you. (whistling) So, Jidori is complicated. By the way, some places you might see on the menu labeled as jazz Jidori J-A-S. That is the Japanese agricultural standard. Some places on their menu might have the little jazz logo design J-A-S to indicate to people, to the diners, that their type of Jidori is certified by the actual Japanese government. And so they're legit, so to speak, right? Other places, they don't wanna use that because I guess their brand is just so much stricter, so much higher quality than the base jazz, Japanese agricultural standard requirements that they want to distinguish themselves. So, really, I guess the best way if you wanna be absolutely 100% sure that what you're getting is genuine Jidori then you may just have to ask the waiter or the chef, especially if you're outside of Japan. I think the impression that I got from my conversation with the band and from what I was reading in his dissertation and whatnot is that it seems pretty unlikely that what you're getting outside of Japan is legit jazz Jidori, what the Japanese government deems to be real Jidori. So, I guess you're gonna have to go to these centers of production, like for example Miyazaki Jidori, or I think ICHI Prefecture also has, you know, it's also the coaching, if I remember correctly, you know, all these places have their own brands. So if you're traveling around Japan, see if that part of Japan happens to have its own breed of Jidori and go check out these at Kaya and see if perhaps the local Yakitori place has its own brand. I know I wanna go to Miyazaki Prefecture and check out some Miyazaki Jidoro-co char broiled. That sounds very good to me. I'm not sure about the sashimi, but anyway. Again, you can check out the article in which we try to summarize a lot of this in a more concise, really, I think, clear way. So again, what is Jidori's the name of the article? I'm gonna put a link in the show notes at JapanStationPodcast.com. If you have any questions or comments, go ahead and send them over to
[email protected] and follow on Facebook and Twitter @JapancoNews to keep up to date with what's going on. Of course, you can always support on Patreon at japanco.com/patreon. And if you wanna support the show by shopping, then you can go to japanco.com/amazon and do your shopping on Amazon. And that will help support the show that is an affiliate link. So whatever you spend, I'm just gonna get a tiny, tiny, tiny little percentage of that and it won't cost you anything extra. Please remember to subscribe to the show and rate and review and do all that wonderful stuff. As always, thank you so much to Unimee for providing the theme song, "Oito Controller." More information can be found in the show notes. So that does it for episode 35. The chicken extravaganza is over. Currently, I am working on another episode, which is going to be food-related. Almost certainly, I have an interview coming up very soon. So if you're a Patreon on Patreon, you'll get to find out what that is before anybody else. So I'll be back soon. Probably, April 15th, unless I decide to release something else before then. (laughs) So yeah, that does it for episode 35. Thank you so much for listening and remember, go find your miniature pony. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Just. Good!
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