Fried Pork and Long Onion on Skewers

Kushikatsu is a variation on tonkatsu, fried pork cutlet. Tonkatsu is a very unusual name. It is a combination of the Japanese word ton, “pork,” and a corruption of the English cutlet. Fried pork cutlet was born along with modern Japan when political power was returned to the Meiji emperor from the Tokugawa shogunate at the end of the nineteenth century. The Meiji government reopened the country to foreign commerce and culture after a hiatus of almost thre