Yoshoku is a lesser known type of Japanese cooking, which literally means “Western food”: it is a “traditional” fusion cuisine that has endured two world wars and continues to endear many diners. Yoshoku was an attempt of the Japanese chefs in the Meiji to early Showa period (the beginning of the twentieth century) to cater to the growing public demand for Western style foods, fueled both by curiosity and necessity, by mimicking and replicating foreign recipes to the best of their limited knowledge and resources. In the process of learning by trying, several recipes went through dramatic mutation, which resulted in something extraordinary and delicious and, thoroughly and uniquely, Japanese. The word, “Western,” especially during the early half of this period,* was almost synonymous with the word, “European,” which mainly referred to the following: French – which resulted in the national obsession with mayonnaise and gratin; Russian – ro-ru kyabetsu (rolled or stuffed cabbage) and borushichi (borsht); German - ton-katsu (pork cutlet); and British - shokupan (English white bread) and kare-rice (curry rice), to name a few. While yoshoku encompasses a diverse set of flavors and cooking methods, the unifying flavor is the invariable mellowness and gentleness of each dish, which induces a nostalgic tenderness that would bring tears to the most hardened criminals.**
* The earlier influences were from Portugal – which produced castella and tempura.
**In a stereotypical Japanese police drama, the cop would use one of the these two phrases to crack the suspects: “You mother is crying,” and “Do you want a katsu-don (pork cutlet over rice)?”
Given such historical context, should one be surprised by the similarity of flavors between the Japanese yoshoku and the traditional Russian cooking? After all, they are two branches of the same family; only one of them has run off to Japan and married a couple of other nationals and adopted to the new home country.
