A popular fast-food chain with over 1,200 stores in Japan will now feature a Lithuanian dish – a pork Maltinukas (cutlet). “We can say that Lithuania's name has reached almost every Japanese family,” said Aurelijus Zykas, the country's ambassador to Japan, who initiated the campaign.
The diplomat came up with the idea to introduce Lithuania to a wider audience in Japan using food.
“Although there are various meaningful educational, economic, cultural, political and defence projects being carried out among professionals, Lithuania is not well established in the mass Japanese consciousness. Many people have not even heard the country's name,” said Zykas.
According to him, food culture is important to Japanese people as they discover other countries. However, there had been no restaurant in Japan that would serve Lithuanian food.
“Food plays a very important role in this country – people travel to eat, half of the conversations start with food, and maybe a third of the TV shows are about food,” he said
Therefore, it’s far more effective to shape a country's image through gastronomy, Zykas added.
Matsuya, the fast-food chain, decided to add international flavours by first offering a Polish dish, which it created in cooperation with the Polish Embassy.
This is when the Lithuanian ambassador saw an opportunity.
“When the Polish dish campaign went viral on social media, I took a step in my Twitter diplomacy – I publicly commented on Matsuya's tweet from my personal account, asking if we could also expect a Lithuanian dish,” said Zykas.
His tweet was picked up by the Japanese media, according to the diplomat. Within an hour, representatives of the restaurant chain called the Lithuanian Embassy. A few days later, the first meeting took place.
Zykas and the restaurant reps first discussed prices, which was later followed by food tasting.
“Although we wanted to offer a true national dish, we had to comply with Matsuya's standards – it had to be a meaty meal, easy to prepare, filling, and eaten every day in Lithuania,” he said.
Lithuania’s Embassy did not hire a chef due to a limited budget, but Zykas’ wife Kristina prepared several variations of the dish. She made chicken carbonnade with mushrooms and carrots, as well as a cutlet with mushroom sauce and dumplings. Although Zykas said he preferred the carbonnade, the cutlet – known as Maltinukas in Lithuanian – was the final choice.
“The Japanese side brought several chefs and professional tasters whose aim was to recreate the authentic taste. They did it very responsibly,” said Zykas.
A month later, the ambassador attended a tasting to see what the Japanese chefs had managed to create.
“I was surprised – the dishes really reminded me of my wife's homemade cooking,” he said.
Because the dish will go with unsalted rice and miso soup, it had to be much more salty. “Therefore, the Japanese have made some important adaptations in taste and texture to suit the Japanese palate. This is how a new Lithuanian-Japanese dish was born,” said the ambassador.
According to him, the campaign has been a great success from the beginning, with the Japanese eagerly embracing the Lithuanian flavour.
“Although cutlet is a fairly common dish in modern Japanese cuisine, serving it with a mushroom sauce caused a huge wave of surprise and admiration, and allowed us to spread the message about mushroom picking and the mushroom culture in Lithuania,” said Zykas.
Andrius Kleiva, an LRT contributor in Japan, said he has never seen so many Lithuanian flags in Tokyo.
“The outlets of this fast food restaurant have put the tricolour on the posters of the new dish in the windows. To be able to see and taste something inspired by Lithuania in a [popular] Japanese restaurant brings a lot of pleasant nostalgia,” he said.
Food diplomacy is a good way to promote tourism and Lithuanian culture, Kleiva added.
“A policeman who once stopped me did not ask me about Gediminas Castle, but about apple varieties. A friend who came to Lithuania also would recall the best types of bread,” said Kleiva.
“I saw a man in a cafeteria taking a bite and looking at images of Vilnius on his phone, reading something about Cepelinai”, the famous Lithuanian potato dish, he added.
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