Individual personalities in the novel are discussed to emerge from conversations around the nabe pot at these beef restaurants. This same character is later shown turning to his neighbor in the restaurant and speaks this passage:
"Excuse me, but beef is certainly a most delicious thing, isn't it.... I wonder why we in Japan haven't eaten such a clean thing before?... We really should be grateful that even people like ourselves can now eat beef, thanks to the fact that Japan is steadily becoming a truly civilized country."
Kanagaki's use of the word "clean" in this passage is discussed as being laughable or satirical, as the word that he chose (seiketsu) can also mean neatness and purity, making the statement ironic due to the fact that one of the main arguments against beef during the Meiji period came from a Shinto dogma that associated the consumption of red meat as being "dirty" or polluting. This passage demonstrates the author's effective use of exploiting the dissonant views on beef and beef-eaters during the Meiji period, by transforming these incongruous judgments through comedic means.
During the Meiji Period from 1868 to 1912, beef was considered an expensive delicacy consumed by those of higher status or wealth, as over a short period of time cattle became a symbol associated with modernization. Popular writers of this era have helped to perpetuate the symbol of beef into the Japanese subconscious through complicating it’s status using satiric and comedic means.
Kanagaki Robun, a popular fiction writer of the Meiji period set one of his comic novels in a beef restaurant on Asakusa Street in Tokyo. Aguranabe, sometimes translated as "Sitting Cross-Legged at the Beef Pot" was shown to reveal the depraved reputation that beef restaurants called asgyû-nabe-ya had at the time, demonstrating the conflicted space through which beef had been recognized, as people saw consuming beef as both civilizing and destructive.
Kanagaki's writings reflected the attitudes of many Japanese at the time who considered beef-eaters to be both of society’s most exemplary members due to the status and price, yet also associated with gluttonous degenerates - which we see reflected in Aguranabe through characters that include an ill-tempered samurai, a hack writer, a lazy man who frequents brothels, and an easygoing prostitute who enjoys snacking.
In the opening a man is described as wearing western styled clothes with a covered umbrella, and is seen as taking every measure he can to come off as modern and sophisticated. From time to time he is seen removing from his sleeve in an obvious manner as if to show off, a cheap watch to consult the time. Kanagaki narrates here "As a matter of fact this is merely so much display to impress others, and the chain is only gold-plate" Illustrating the stereotype of the beef-eater as perhaps having more "pomp" than substance.
[Images from Aguranabe. Source]
References:
-Carol, G. (1985). japan's modern myths: Ideology in the late meiji period. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
-Assmann, S., & Rath, E. C. (2010). Japanese foodways, past and present. Illinois, Chicago: Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.
-Copeland, R. Japanese language and literature. (1 ed., Vol. 39, pp. 63-68). Boulder, CO: American Association of Teachers of Japanese.