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Nakagawa Kahei: The Cook Who Sold Beef to Meiji Japan

A Yokohama cook saw that Western food habits would spread, sold beef when few Japanese ate it, then made his name with ice.

Who was Nakagawa Kahei?

Nakagawa Kahei lived from 1817 to 1897, according to a Japanese trivia article. He is usually remembered as an ice merchant, but he also belongs in the history of beef because he was among the first people to sell beef and milk to a Japan that had long avoided eating meat from cattle.

Sources spell his given name both Kahei and Kihei, and they disagree on some details of his early shop. This profile states only what the pages say and flags the differences.

From British legation cook to beef seller

One source says he trained as a cook at the British legation in Yokohama after the port opened to foreign trade. Another, from Into Japan Waraku, names the British minister Rutherford Alcock as his employer and says he ran a shop dealing in beef and milk in Yokohama, and describes it as Tokyo's first beef shop.

His reasoning, as reported, was that Western food habits would spread. A third account describes a butcher shop called Nakagawaya in Edo, which later became Tokyo. It says near the end of the Tokugawa period he traveled daily to Yokohama to buy beef and sold it to foreign legations in Edo.

Why beef was hard to sell in early Meiji Japan

The Kikkoman food culture paper explains the hurdles. Refrigeration did not exist, so live cattle were herded to consumer regions and slaughtered there. Nakagawa wanted his own slaughterhouse in Edo but struggled to find land. A lord eventually lent him a plot, but neighbors complained about the mess and he moved somewhere more remote.

He also boiled thin slices of beef in a soy sauce broth and wrapped them in bamboo to slow spoilage. He first tried selling the product through the windows of a cram school and opened a beef hotpot restaurant in a rented shop, though customers were few at first.

The Key to Nakagawa's Success

Nakagawa's record is less about cattle breeding than about building a supply chain for a product the public was not yet used to. The lessons below come from the cited pages.

They should be read with the caution that the sources differ on location and dates.

  • Serve the customers who already want the product: foreign legations were his early beef buyers.
  • Solve spoilage: boiling and wrapping beef addressed the lack of refrigeration.
  • Test different channels, from school windows to a restaurant, until one works.
  • Recognize the cold chain: he concluded that hygiene for meat and milk needed ice, which led to his ice business.
  • Expect pushback: neighbors objected to slaughter near their homes, and he had to relocate.

The ice business that made his name

A missionary reportedly taught him that ice helped preserve food and medicine. In 1862, Into Japan Waraku says, he brought ice from Hakodate and Lake Suwa and opened a shaved ice shop on Bashamichi in Yokohama. Harvesting attempts at Mount Fuji, Lake Suwa, Kamaishi, Akita and Aomori failed on quality and transport.

After the 1869 Hakodate War he obtained seven years of exclusive ice harvesting rights at Goryokaku and built an ice facility there in 1870. Hakodate ice was cheaper and better than imported ice, and the company he founded became a purveyor to the Imperial Household Agency.

Beef, hotpot and the 1873 turning point

The Kikkoman paper links the rise of beef hotpot to 1873, when the imperial ban on eating meat was lifted. It reports that daily cattle slaughter rose from about 1.5 head in 1868 to about 20 in 1873.

Those figures show the market Nakagawa and others were entering. Demand grew fast, but supply chains for fresh beef stayed local until refrigeration arrived.

Learn more

For modern beef marketing and ranching, see the ranching section of farm.FM. A related read is a farm.FM story on Japanese beef.

This entry is marked thin because the three sources disagree on place and omit most personal details, so the profile adds only accurately sourced context.

Timeline

  1. 1817Born
  2. 1862Opens a shaved ice shop in Yokohama (per Into Japan Waraku)
  3. 1868Cattle slaughter about 1.5 head a day (Kikkoman paper)
  4. 1869Gains seven-year ice harvesting rights at Goryokaku, Hakodate
  5. 1870Builds an ice facility in Hakodate
  6. 1873Imperial ban on meat eating lifted; beef hotpot grows popular
  7. 1897Dies

Frequently asked questions

Who was Nakagawa Kahei?

Nakagawa Kahei (1817 to 1897) was a former British legation cook in Yokohama who sold beef and milk in early Meiji-era Japan and later became known for his natural ice business.

Did Nakagawa Kahei open Tokyo's first beef shop?

One source describes his shop as Tokyo's first beef shop, while another places his butcher shop Nakagawaya in Edo. Sources differ, so the claim is best treated as reported.

Why did beef become popular in Japan in 1873?

A Japanese food culture paper says the imperial ban on eating meat was lifted in 1873, after which beef hotpot grew popular and cattle slaughter rose sharply.

Sources and further reading

Profiles are compiled from public sources and reviewed against them. See our editorial policy to suggest a correction.

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