As Japan Ages, Menus Adapt to Finding the Gourmet in Purées
The day the nursing home group arrived for lunch, Motoko Hirose, the restaurant manager, stood in a corner of the kitchen chopping
and putting multiple plates of squid and leek stir-fry through a single food processor.
That’s because the staff at the restaurant, Kaze no Oto, had puréed the stir-fry in a food processor
and served it to his group, which was from a nearby nursing home.
The bulk of Kaze no Oto’s customers are not elderly patients with special eating needs
but residents who enjoy the inexpensive lunch specials and dishes like broccoli and beef with oyster sauce or shrimp and beans with chili sauce.
The kind of preparation done by the Mutuai nursing home is still too time-consuming for most restaurants, given
that relatively few customers with severe swallowing problems go out to eat.
Kaze no Oto, in a suburb of Yokohama, is one of a few restaurants in Japan catering to
an aging population with meals for those who have difficulty chewing or swallowing.
For the residents who have more severe swallowing issues, the staff sent the meal through a food
processor, adding a gel powder before cooking the puréed versions in vacuum-sealed plastic bags.
