Edo-Tokyo Museum Collection —Life and Food in Edo-Tokyo [held at Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum]

During the Edo period, the city of Edo, where the shogunate was established, flourished as a political and cultural center, growing into a major city where samurai and many others resided. In this vibrant urban setting, dishes featuring vegetables from nearby farming villages and fresh seafood from Edo Bay became widely enjoyed by the common people.
With the arrival of the Meiji era, Western cuisine was introduced from abroad, and the Meiji government actively promoted its adoption, particularly as official cuisine in diplomatic settings. Although people initially struggled with table manners and unfamiliar customs, they gradually embraced these new influences and blended it with existing culinary traditions to create yōshoku—Western-influenced cuisine—that soon became widely beloved.
This exhibition presents a carefully curated selection from the collection of the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which is currently closed for long-term renovations. Through these exhibits, we will explore how the everyday diet of Edo’s common people met and blended with Western cuisine, evolving into the rich culinary heritage of Japan we know today.