駅弁にみる時代像 ‒戦時体制下の駅弁を中心に‒

Abstract

Ekiben(railway boxed meals), characteristic of its non-everydayness exemplifed by famous regional specialties and train travel, has developed itself in response to a change of times. This paper takes a general look at the history of ekiben, and then investigates ekiben under the period of wartime during which many of its distict features have emerged as evidence for its sociality and historicity. What this paper focuses on in particular ranges from changes appearing in the menu and packaging of ekiben to the way in which it responds to, and is receptive of, the situation in the then period and to the underlying historical backdrop behind it. Japan in wartime strictly controlled long-distance movement of civilians and food distribution, as the war situation deterioated. This led to the transformation of ekiben’s packaging design from a disinctive and diverse form, influenced mostly by regional specialties(i.e. gakegami), into a standardized form printed merely with wartime images and replacement menu: it was the peculiar time during which luxuriness and non-everydayness representative of ekiben’s original characteristics have been shadowed by the then gloomy everydays in wartime Japan. Meanwhile, ekiben producers were also assumed to have been able to supply gunben(military boxed meals) thanks to their maintaining their personal trustful relationship with railway authorities or by inventing their know-hows for mass-production of boxed meals. That ekiben has been unable to maintain its original local/regional and luxurious characteristics during the wartime can possibly be to do with the continuous production/invention of diverse forms of ekiben to date from the postwar period