was a Japanese food historian from the city of Futtsu, Chiba. He was a courtesy member of the Cultural Academic Society. He wrote under the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

Masaaki.

Biography

He was a graduate of the psychology section of the literature department of Waseda University. While attending university, he served as an apprentice to Kitaoji Rosanjin to study the fine arts of cooking. Afterwards, he worked in the editorial office at the magazine Housewife’s Friend. He continues to study and write about the cultural history of Japanese food. He was one of the regular judges on the Fuji TV Corporation hit program

Iron Chef is a Japanese television cooking show produced by Fuji Television. The series, which premiered on October 10, 1993, was a stylized cook-off featuring guest chefs challenging one of the show's resident "Iron Chefs" in a timed cooking battle bui ...

, where he bore the title “Rosanjin Scholar”.

Asako Kishi was a Japanese journalist and culinary critic, best known for her role as a guest judge on Iron Chef Japan. Career Kishi was raised in Tokyo, and attended Kagawa Nutrition University. She began her writing career when she joined the Japanese mon ...

was also a regular judge on the program, and was a coworker of Masaaki’s while he worked at Housewife’s Friend. He appeared in the "Seed of Trivia” segment of “

Hey! Spring of Trivia ''Hey! Spring of Trivia'' is the name given by Spike TV to the show , a Japanese comedy game show on Fuji TV. Concept ''Trivia'' consists of a series of video segments that introduce and confirm the validity of unusual trivia. Past trivia has inc ...

” (broadcast on November 11, 2005) where he addressed the issue of “broth from which brand of cup of Ramen best complemented cold rice”. The other judges were food critic Mita Morio, cooking researcher Eiko Egaki, and the owner of Passion restaurant Andre Passion. Hirano died in November 2008 of a heart attack.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hirano, Masaaki 20th-century Japanese historians 1931 births 2008 deaths People from Futtsu Food historians Waseda University alumni