＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
I once heard a song called “Today, croquette, tomorrow, croquette. I thought it was a song about the food shortage after the war, but it was sung in the Taisho era (1912-1926). Were croquettes rare and fashionable back then? Still, I think I would get tired of it “every day”.
＜コミカルな「コロッケの唄」の元歌を作ったのは、益田太郎冠者という意外な人物＞
I remember that when I was a child, I was fed up with eating inexpensive “canned mackerel” every day to save money because my family was poor.
The canned salmon was light and tasty, but the canned mackerel was oily and difficult for me to eat.
１．The “mackerel can” boom
The “canned mackerel” boom seems to have been sparked by the popular TV program “Secret Kenmin Show” (Nippon Television Network Corporation) broadcast in September 2017, in which canned mackerel was introduced as a food that people in Nagano Prefecture are passionate about.
According to Maruha Nichiro, a leading processed seafood company, sales for the six months from October 2017 increased by 40% compared to the same period last year. This boom continues today, with Maruha Nichiro’s mackerel can sales increasing nearly 50% year-on-year from April to December 2018.
The cause of this boom’s long-lasting popularity was that afterwards, various TV information programs successively touted canned mackerel as cheap, nutritious, blood-thinning, and good for beauty, among other things. Since the bones and blood can be eaten whole, more calcium and vitamin D can be ingested than when eaten raw.
What’s the difference? Hobby Doki! Meii no THE Taiko-ban! The World Matsuko Doesn’t Know,” ‘Sore Dame,’ ”Hayashi Osamu no Imadesyo! and many more.
The benefits and nutrition of mackerel include the following
Its efficacy includes prevention of high blood pressure, blurring, arteriosclerosis, alleviation of eye strain, and enhancement of liver function.
The abundant lipid nutritionally supplements protein and helps build strength. Mackerel fat contains very high levels of EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), which are called unsaturated fatty acids. Both of these components work to reduce cholesterol and neutral fat in the blood, making blood flow easier and preventing cerebral and myocardial infarctions caused by blood clots and arteriosclerosis.
２．Increased popularity of substitute “canned sardines”
Due to a sharp increase in demand for canned mackerel, raw materials are in short supply and raw material prices have skyrocketed, so canned sardines continue to be produced in increasing quantities as a substitute.
Like canned mackerel, canned sardines contain nutrients such as EPA, DHA, and calcium. Thanks in part to the publicity generated by TV programs, the market size in 2018 was 7.3 billion yen, a 75% jump from the previous year, surpassing that of canned saury. It is still less than one-third the size of canned mackerel, but its popularity is soaring.