Traditional Japanese food

Soon afterI came to Japan to live in late 1990, I enjoyed a lunch that included コロッケ, korokke, which looked just like what you can see on my plate. The friend who had cooked the lunch asked me if I had ever had this particular Japanese dish before. She was surprized and, I think, disappointed to learn that I grew up on croquettes, which were pretty much the same thing and obviously both from the same French word. (I think it means crunch.)

Croquettes were introduced to Japan about 100 years ago and they're already accepted as "Japanese." Tempura has been in Japan for about four hundred years and it's pretty thoroughly integrated into the national cuisine, though its Portugese origin is widely remembered, at least in academic circles.

Of course, if you go back far enough, nearly all "Japanese" dishes can be traced back to Korea or China, even tofu, even rice. There's a strong feeling of trust in "Japanese" food, trust in its safety, purity, and health benefits. As I said about tofu last week, "Made in Japan," and with traditional Japanese ingredients, is a strong selling point.

There's even a tradition that "Japanese" food should always be eaten with chopsticks (though they too came from China) while "foreign" foods, even (sometimes) Chinese, can be eaten with a spoon or fork. When I taught at Yoshino Junior High School, I found that school lunch was served either with waribashi (throw away chopsticks) or sporks (the combination spoon and fork that used to be found sometimes in schools in the U.S.) depending on the perceived country of origin of the food. I remember complaining (humorously, I thought) to one of the other teachers that it was very hard to eat spaghetti with a spork, and thought the students should be given waribashi, as they were for udon, which are considered "Japanese" though they came from China too.