Reopening Japan

After the country was opened up in the mid 19th century, meat eating was reintroduced. The emperor Meiji Tenno himself ate beef in 1872 and this opened the floodgates to the public’s conception that meat-eating was something new and fashionable. Beef-based dishes, such as sukiyaki and shabu shabu, are inventions of this period. French and English breads also flooded in but they were regarded as snacks and cakes.

Integrating newly arrived European cooking methods and ingredients into Japanese cooking, many eclectic dishes, called yõshoku (Western food) as opposed to washoku, were created. Tonkatsu, pork cutlet, is the most noteworthy, and numerous tonkatsu restaurants opened up all over Japan.