May 28 is National Hamburger Day and this year, the entire Yokosuka community – both on and off base – celebrate the 15th anniversary of a local icon; the Yokosuka Navy Burger.
In November 2008, Rear Admiral James D. Kelly, then the commander of Naval Region Japan, gave his U.S. Navy recipe to Yokosuka Mayor Ryoichi Kabaya.
The short and friendly letter would mark what would become part of the city’s canon.
The Admiral described in his letter that the recipe was “typical for hamburgers produced aboard U.S. Navy ships and bases in Japan.” The recipe seems, at least in part, based off of a series of recipe cards provided by the Armed Forces Recipe Service. AFRS’ hamburger recipes have played a key role in several generations of Sailors’ weekly routines for decades. It’s affectionately known as, “Burger Wednesday.”
“AFRS is a big database of recipes that FSM [Food Service Management] pulls from to create our 21-day menu,” said Culinary Specialist 1st Class Freddy Pena, a Los Angeles native assigned to CFAY’s Commodore Matthew C. Perry General Mess. The mess, also known as the Jewel of the East, serves about 800 meals a day with lunch being the busiest of services.
“[Now] the database is all digital, but we used to get physical cards. We actually still reference those cards because a lot of them are much more detailed.” Pena’s been behind the grill in dozens of Navy galleys over his 20-some years in the service. If there’s a man who knows which recipe cards are better written – whether they be digital or physical – it’s Pena.
The 21-day menu he referenced is a standard operating procedure for the staff. Aside from letting servicemembers know what’s being served, it also helps balance how much storage is needed, when to place orders and allows staff to coordinate perishables, like produce, to have the freshest possible offerings.
“It’s a complicated process, but there are three meals that are easy to plan for – Taco Tuesday, Burger Wednesday, and Pizza and Wings Friday,” said Culinary Specialist 1st Class Victor Maldonado, a Jersey City, New Jersey native also assigned to CFAY’s Jewel of the East. “If we don’t have burgers on Wednesdays,” Maldonado paused to smile as if he held an impromptu internal debate whether to tell a Burger Wednesday-related Sea story or not. “It’ll be a problem,” he said barely finishing his sentence without laughing.
Maldonado and the galley staff will review this database about once a month under the supervision and direction of their officer-in-charge, or Chow Boss. The entire database goes under an annual evaluation stateside and updates are provided if needed. Meaning from time-to-time, there are minor changes to the database. Normally, each change is minor. Over several years, though, a recipe may deviate so much from so many minor tweaks that the modern version doesn’t resemble the original any longer.
“We use the AFRS burger recipe and have one in-house recipe we’ve developed and improved on over the years,” Maldonado said. “We call our burger the CFAY Western Burger, and there’s more to it than the AFRS recipe. There’s egg in the mix, bacon, a homemade barbecue sauce.”
“[AFRS’] is much simpler – like salt, pepper, maybe some onion powder,” Pena said to finish Maldonado’s thought.
AFRS was founded in 1968 to standardize food management throughout the Department of Defense. But by the time AFRS set out to begin its work, many installation galleys and chow halls had already created their own in-house recipes. These recipes largely evolved from the original U.S. Navy Cook Book published in 1945. This likely includes the Jewel of the East’s own CFAY Western Burger. Those in house were passed down through generations of Mess Management Specialists to Culinary Specialists and civilian employees.
And the occasional Admiral staff member.
“At the time, I was serving as a political advisor and interpreter for Rear Admiral Kelly. Every few months, we would have a meeting with the mayor of Yokosuka, his staff, and some other Japanese government officials. On the U.S. side, it was Rear Admiral Kelly, the CFAY captain, and some reps from U.S. Naval Reactors,” said John Neimeyer.
Neimeyer is a Navy veteran and local historian enjoying retirement following a career in civil service. He’s turned a hobby of documenting historical gems from Yokosuka’s storied naval history into a personal mission.
“It was at one of those meetings in 2008 where it was mentioned that it was the 10-year anniversary of the City of Yokosuka declaring ‘Navy Curry Rice’ as the city’s official food.
Navy Curry Rice, or Kaigun Kare, is the Taco Tuesday of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, or JMSDF. Each JMSDF ship actually has it’s own unique recipe that isn’t shared with any other crew. There are annual festivals around the curry dishes attended by thousands of local residents, including in Yokosuka, where judges choose which crew prepared and served the best curry. In 1998, the JMSDF’s Yokosuka headquarters provided a curry recipe to the City of Yokosuka which was then declared the official curry of Yokosuka.
Neimeyer continued to say that someone in the meeting said, “the U.S. Navy has been in Yokosuka for over 60 years, maybe we should also offer up a recipe like JMSDF did.’ That’s when I threw out the idea, ‘how about a Navy Burger?’”
After that 2008 meeting, Niemeyer explained that Admiral Kelly asked him to draft a letter and include the Navy’s recipe.
“I can’t remember exactly, but I talked to a couple of people who had Navy culinary experience. I eventually looked around and ended up finding an official-type old document which had a recipe. It might have been the 1945 cook book,” Niemeyer said.
The idea was to provide the Admiral with a recipe similar to the sliders served at MIDRATs, or midnight rations, that Niemeyer had aboard USS Midway (CV 41) in an early-80s Yokosuka.
“Those simple burgers were not gourmet level, but they were a staple and tasted real good [sic] after a long day of at-sea ops. Another thing was that the JMSDF cook up curry rice on all of its ships every Friday as part of their tradition. I wanted a U.S. Navy food that sort of matched that heritage; being a regularly-served comfort food.”
Just like the line of Sailors and Marines outside the Jewel of the East on Burger Wednesday that Maldonado described earlier.
A short time later, the letter and a carefully constructed recipe was perfectly tailored for the Admiral to give to the Mayor, Niemeyer became the co-author of the Yokosuka Navy Burger.
Mayor Kabaya shared the recipe with several local restaurant owners a short time after receiving it from the Admiral. Soon, the city would eventually trademark the name “Yokosuka Navy Burger.” 15 restaurants are permitted to use the trademark after agreeing to follow the city’s guidance:
• Minimum 170 grams of 100-percent ground beef with 20-percent fat
• A pinch of salt and pepper
• Only subtle seasonings that do not take away from the meat’s natural flavor
• No eggs, bread crumbs, or any other binding agents
• Toasted buns with sesame seeds on top
• No ketchup, mustard or mayonnaise, but may be made available for customers
Fumiyo Sato reported in a February 2009 Seahawk-Umitaka article, there was some concern initially that all of the restaurants would end up having similar burger options because of the rules. Local restaurant owner and chef Shigeru Iida and his wife, Keiko, said it was difficult for them to find a way to make their hamburgers stand out from the others while still adhering to the city’s guidance to ensure they could the trademark.
“We use natural marine yeast of Miura [Peninsula] for our buns, which is very chewy and very tasty,” he said in the article. We also make ketchup and special mayonnaise using American mayonnaise.”
Paying attention to the details are what made each of the participating restaurants able to serve their own unique brand of Yokosuka Navy Burger and still be within the trademark requirements.
15 years later, tourists line the streets outside of Yokosuka’s 15 Navy Burger restaurants eager for a taste of Little America, just as servicemembers line passageways leading to shipboard galleys on every Wednesday at sea.
