Yoshoku : Where East meets West

There was a time in my life when my knowledge of Japanese cuisine started off with stuff I watched on anime. I don't know about you but that was my introduction to Japanese cuisine, watching episodes of Naruto and Dragon Ball Z on a weekday afternoon and wondering what those would taste like...........the food, of course. It was one of my driving motivations in learning about Japanese culture and their food and it was a slow and steady process. I will admit that I wish I could forget some things I learnt about Japan(if you know, you know).......but most of it is "fine".

Anyways...

alainkun from Tokyo, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Some of the dishes which are famous in Japan include Ramen, Sushi, Tonkatsu, Japanese curry, Omurice etc. But did you know that 3 out of 5 dishes I mentioned belong to a style of cooking that the Japanese refer to as "Yoshoku"? Japan has two styles of cooking in their cuisine known as "Washoku" and "Yoshoku". Washoku refers to traditional Japanese food and Yoshoku refers to Western-influenced Japanese food. The term Yoshoku comes from "Yo" meaning Western and "Shoku" meaning food.

History lesson!

Image via Flickr by Photograph Curator

The origin point of this cultural influence was during the Meiji era (1868-1912) when Commodore Matthew Perry arrived at Kurihima in 1853 and triggered the rapid modernization of Japan. According to the article written by Kayoko Hirata Paku on the website Just One Cookbook, this era marked a turning point in Japanese history. Emperor Meiji decided to open the doors to Western influence and this modernization was encouraged to prevent colonization of Japan by other Asian countries. The Japanese believed that the great upper body physique of the European soldiers was due to their consumption of meat. So, the Meiji Emperor decided to lift the ban on meat consumption and promote meats such as beef and pork. Before this, The Japanese diet was mostly seafood based. Slaughtering of animals and consuming meat was prohibited due to several factors such as the introduction of Buddhist teachings from Korea, Emperor Tenmu's official decree banning meat, difficulty in rearing farm animals due to mountainous regions etc.

The military which arrived at Kurihima introduced beef to the Japanese. Beef eating was banned for 1200 years in Japan and was unusual for them. So, they tried to eat it in dishes with ingredients which are commonly used in Japanese cuisine.

Danglewis, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

One of the first Yoshoku or western influenced dishes was Gyu-nabe, which is a beef hotpot cooked with miso paste. The yoshoku food that is known today is completely Japanese although the dishes look like Western cuisine. The ingredients used in these dishes are ingredients which are commonly available in Japan. The reason for this is the scarcity of ingredients in the olden days, so they couldn't find the exact ingredients for making these dishes.

Image via Flickr by Mike Mozart

For example, ketchup. This is very popular in Japan to date. If you didn't know, Japanese people love ketchup. They even put ketchup on rice and eat it just like that. This was a substitute for tomato puree that was used in dishes like spaghetti. It was also substituted because it was more commonly available. Many of the complicated sauces used for Western dishes were substituted with simple sauces like ketchup, demi-glace, Worcestershire sauce etc.

These are some of the Yoshoku dishes that are popular in Japan and all over the world :

Image via Flickr by Mokiko

Kareraisu (Curry rice): Japan is famous for its curry and unlike Indian curry, it is not spicy at all. Sometimes, honey is added to balance the spices, making it easier for kids to eat. A survey conducted in 2005 shows that the favourite dish of kids in Japan is Kareraisu. This dish was introduced by the Western military and it was encouraged that people eat due to the rising cases of Beri Beri in Japan due to Vitamin B deficiency. The wheat which was mixed into the curry helped provide the necessary nutrition and it helped with malnourishment in children during the 1950s.

Image via Flickr by nakashi

Spaghetti Napoliatan: It might look like normal spaghetti but it's not. The spaghetti is boiled way past the al dente point and the noodles are stir-fried, yes, stir-fried with bell peppers, mushroom and ketchup (Italian grandmas will cry at the sight of this dish). The dish was named after the city of Naples where this seemed to have originated from. There is another version of this dish in which soy sauce is used instead of ketchup and the dish is topped with shredded seaweed.

Image credit : @kichikichi_omurice

Omurice (Omelette rice): Omurice is the first Yoshoku dish that I was introduced to by this man, Chef Motokichi Yukimura, owner of the restaurant Kichi Kichi, which is a very popular Yoshoku restaurant in Japan. Videos of him making omurice in a theatrical manner went viral on social media making himself, his restaurant and the dish itself popular.

Image via Flickr by rockYOface

I first saw him and omurice on the Internet show Worth It by Tasty (which if you haven't seen till now, I don't know what to tell you). The dish consists of fried rice stir-fried with either ketchup or demi-glace and topped of with a creamy omelette. They also write words and draw symbols on top of the omelette with ketchup (told ya, Japan loves ketchup).

Image via Flickr by Michael Saechang

Tonkatsu: You might have heard of Tonkatsu ramen, well the ramen part is the noodle soup and the Tonkatsu part is a deep-fried pork cutlet. "Ton" means pork or pig in Japanese and "Katsu" means "katsuretsu" or cutlet in Japanese. Minced pork is shaped into a ball, flattened, breaded with panko breadcrumbs and deep fried. It is served with demi-glace sauce or ketchup on top of rice with shredded cabbage.

OiMax from Tokyo, Japan, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Hambagu Steak: A hamburger steak or Salisbury steak, is made of ground meat and then griddled like a burger patty and topped off with a sauce made from a combination of ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. It is often served with rice or vegetables.

毒島みるく, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Beef Tongue Stew: A western-inspired meat stew made with a beef tongue. This is one of the popular dishes in the restaurant Kichi Kichi where the sauce is simmered for 96 hours. It is flavoured with soy sauce, mirin, miso paste etc. Chef Yukimura claims this dish to be his number one dish in the restaurant.

CYAN, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Korokke: Korokkes are deep-fried potato croquettes mixed with ground pork and onions. It is then breaded with panko breadcrumbs and deep-fried.

These are only some of the dishes which are part of this cuisine and I am sure many more will be added as time passes on, because the Japanese are so dedicated towards innovating things.

In the Netflix show, Ugly Delicious, hosted by David Chang, who is a chef and a restaurateur, there is an episode that revolves around pizza. Chef Chang along with his friend Aziz Ansari, a famous American standup comedian, go to the pizza restaurant Seirinkan owned by Susumu Kakinuma. While talking about his pizza, Chef Kakinuma speaks and I quote, "But I think the Japanese are really good at taking something and making it their own, making it their original." And I believe he is right and Yoshoku is a really good representation of his words. This adaption of food to suit geographical, political and cultural climates is what led to the birth of this cuisine.

When I first started to cook, I believed that I needed to have all the right ingredients to make a dish as authentic and good as possible. But this kind of food teaches me to make the best use of the ingredients surrounding me and make something good out of it. As long as something is done carefully and intelligently, it doesn't matter if it isn't authentic. So long as it tastes good......that's still the challenging part but also fun.

So, the next time you make an omelette or spaghetti, put some ketchup on it........and be prepared to face the wrath of "food purists" if you are going to share it online. That's the takeaway of this entire story.

See you next week!