By Adam Brownstein
September 20, 2026 // Tokyo, Japan
“For some of our most important beliefs we have no evidence at all, except that people we love and trust hold these beliefs. Considering how little we know, the confidence we have in our beliefs is preposterous—and it is also essential.”
From “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman
In 1880, the seeds of Japan’s parliamentary democracy were planted in the taverns of old Osaka. It was then that the sake-swilling members of all 24 prefectures assembled to form the Kokkai Kisei Dōmei (the League for the Establishment of a National Assembly). The movement was a long, deliberate backswing. The follow through would drive Japan to establish a constitution and elected parliament. The Diet Building, home to Parliament, in Nagatcho traces its roots back to the Kokkai Kisei Dōmei.
1880 was also a transformative year in America. It was then that Wabash, Indiana became the first town on the planet to be illuminated almost entirely by electricity. The invention of the Wizard of Menlo Park had finally achieved scale. In the neighboring state of Pennsylvania an innovation of perhaps greater significance debuted that same year.
Looking to capitalize on the success of their flagship ketchup launch in 1876, the saucy barons of the H.J. Heinz Company launched Heinz Chili Sauce in 1880 as a heartier, more spiced alternative to ketchup. Table-ready and inspired by the spices favored in New England farmhouses, Heinz Chili Sauce played a small, earnest part in the transformation from a society that used to do its own canning.
I came to this knowledge almost purely by chance. Following our return to Tokyo after our summer holiday, I commenced with preparations for the High Holiday season. That is to say I fished out my tallis, paid for our family’s tickets and ordered matzoball soup mix. I also looked to the margins of the Machzor for quotations that would set my intentions towards closing out 5786 in repentant style. One quote struck me in particular. The Tosafot (renowned 12th–13th century Franco-German rabbinical commentators on the Babylonian Talmud) noted “Minhag avoteinu Torah hee” (“The custom of our ancestors is Torah”).
I liked it because it validated two long held beliefs about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The first, framed in the preamble to this post, is the notion that humans value social validation over empirical proof. We rarely construct deep beliefs by analytically examining primary evidence. Instead, we inherit them from early authority figures—primarily parents and close community members whom we love and trust. We ask Professor Kahneman, why do we like davening in shul? And he explains it’s because our mothers and fathers like davening in shul. We love our parents, and we love what our parents love. Simple.
I also appreciated the wisdom of the Tosafot because it reminded me of my dear Aunt Edna. I cannot ever remember seeing my Aunt Edna in shul during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Yet being at her house on North Pine Grove Avenue in Chicago was among my fondest High Holiday memories. Once, while wolfing down slices of her famed honey cake in between sips of Maxwell House coffee during Rosh Hashanah in 1997, I asked her why she did not go to shul.
“When Uncle Bern and the boys go to shul, they sit down in the back and instantly go to sleep. If the rabbi’s sermon is metza metza they sleep even more,” she explained. “ And then there’s all of the mumbling in Hebrew. Who needs THAT?”
“I guess you have a point,” I conceded.
“I have many points, Adam dear,” Aunt Edna reasoned. “What’s more, I like to cook and bake. When people come home from shul they’re famished. When you feed them, you’re a kind of hero. And all of this food that you’re enjoying now doesn’t make itself!”
Duly noted.
Now, nearly 30 years later, I finally connected the dots between my Aunt Edna’s tradition of cooking for others and the Tosafot; creating a meal in the style of the great matriarchs of my clan was on par with studying the Akedah or reciting the Unetanneh Tokef. And so I resolved to take some quality time and invest it in a proper Rosh Hashanah spread for my family and dear friends in Tokyo. This would go beyond matzo ball soup, jarred gefilte fish and a challah outsourced from Izaki-san, our nonagenarian community treasure who runs point much of the time in our kitchen at the Jewish Community of Japan.
This would involve brisket.
So on the Sunday before Rosh Hashanah I posted in my extended family’s channel, “seeking family brisket recipe(s) /STOP/ little ‘r’ me if you have a line on one /STOP/ this is my first brisket. /STOP/” It took all of three minutes for my favorite aunt in Tampa to reply. “ have recipe /STOP/ somewhere /STOP/ stay tuned /STOP/”
Two days later my Aunt Inez shared the 6620 North Keating Avenue Brisket Philosophy. I say philosophy rather than recipe as it was a loosely connected set of culinary Hosea’s more than a hardened list of ingredient ratios. Her heartfelt depiction encouraged me to journey deep into the zeitgeist of the kitchens of yore. To the green and white linoleum floors. To the backyards bordered by chain link fences. To the Magic Chef oven ranges teaming with chickens, cholent and tsimmes. Her advice, at its core, encouraged me to have time work in my favor. Set the oven low and slow. And to let my senses and connection to the past guide the brisket to the Rosh Hashanah table. Ultimately, the recipes of our Tribe instruct us to “geshraybn af der bobe’s tam” meaning roughly to abide by grandmother’s taste in Yiddish. Or, as the cool kids today like to quip, “if you know, you know!”.
I secured an 11 pound whole brisket, cheekily encouraging our seven-year-old son to hoist it over his head like the Great Alexi. At one point he bellowed, “L’shanah Tovah, baby! It’s brisket time!!!” Into the braising pan it went, along with many, many onions, the aforementioned Heinz Chilli Sauce and sauce components.
The brisket was just beginning to be tender, after the initial seven hour braising in the oven. My initial cooking calculations were somehow way off, leaving me feeling very much like a clueless ship captain, adrift at the mercy of the sea. Somewhat desperate, I consulted my two most trusted sources of information, my wife and a frontier lab large language model. Both retorted with the same guidance . . . “Well, KEEP going in the oven then!” This measure of comfort confirmed my hope that husbands who employ LLMs will finally be able to match wits with their wives, who are themselves super intelligent.
Seven more hours later, the brisket yielded to the power of my family’s recipe. It had transformed into a fork tender miracle, abiding by the thin slicing knifework my own father had taught me long ago. Rewarming it in the deglazed sauce, I began to sense the presence of my family, lurking around the kitchen when a dish offers an aroma that is truly special. As my aunt had confidently predicted, the brisket was a winner.
Later that night, I sat around the dining room table with dear friends and family. Pusselgutted and content, we reflected on the joy of family recipes over coffee, cheesecake and shine muscat grapes from Yamanashi. One friend conceded that my grandmother’s Chicago brisket was on par with his grandmother’s New Jersey brisket. I will gladly take a draw with the Garden State any day of the week.
There is a beautiful Japanese proverb that captures the essence of my brisket adventure. Keiō kairai translates roughly to “Carry forward the past and open up the future.” I plan to do that with pride, and I am already sourcing the Heinz Chili Sauce for next Rosh Hashanah.
The Tokyo Yenta 