10:28 Turkish rice. Nobody knows.... but isn't it kind of obvious... It's because Turks eat vermicelli rice. I'm pretty sure one of these two things happened: 1) Less likely: Somebody in Nagasaki read about Turks eating rice with vermicilli, and is inspired to serve rice with spaghetti, and name the new dish Turkish rice. It might even have been an accidental invention, and the original creator/name giver really thought that (s)he had recreated a Turkish dish. 2) More likely: After WW2, Japan receive a lot of gratis foodstuffs from USA. One of those foods was spaghetti. There was also a scarcity of traditional Japanese rice in Japan after WW2, and Japanese rice had become a really expensive luxury food (rice imported from USA never became popular, despite being given for free). People started to eat Japanese rice with spaghetti because spaghetti was much cheaper than traditional rice, but they still couldn't force themselves to quit eating traditional Japanese rice entirely. Somebody discovered that Turks also eat rice with pasta, although it is a completely different dish. To make the dish sound more exotic and marketable, and not sound like a poor mans starvation food, the new Japanese dish is renamed to "Turkish rice". Just like we Swedes eat Boston cucumber, a relish invented in 1952 in Sweden, originally made out of leftover foodscraps from making a more traditional pickled Swedish style sliced cucumber preserve ("smörgåsgurka", which was invented in the 1860:s, and was initially called "German cucumber" and similar names, because it originated from German recipes of pickled gherkins, just with a lot of adjustments to better suit Swedish preferences and availability of ingredients, Sweden started industrial native production of sugar in the 1850's, sugar become really cheap, but was still seen as a luxury food by the social groups that couldn't afford it previously, and sugar consumption in Sweden was at its peak, with Swedes adding enormous amounts of sugar into everything they ate). "Bostongurka" somewhat resembles US relishes, and everything comming from USA had a good reputation in Sweden in 1952 [ US products became mythical, mostly because the less war torn Sweden, unlike many other parts of Western Europe, didn't get access to much US products and could only look in envy as neighbouring countries got access to a lot of stuff made in USA; finally, when a lot of US made goods started to get imported to Sweden in the 1960's (because US wanted Swedish steel, copper, cars, machinery and toolery), Swedes discovered, contrary to the previous hype, that all the imported US made products was complete garbage compared to Swedish made products, and the Swedish opinion took a complete turn, and "Made in USA" became synonymous with really bad and expensive products, with the exception of cotton products, becsuse no equivalent product was made in Sweden ], so the new Swedish relish was branded after a common geographic name in USA, because it sounded good in marketing.

Portuguese goes stealth mode... It flies under the radar.

Over here in Belgium and Holland we have our own genre of Chinese food. Partly influenced by Indonesian food trough the Dutch colonial era and partly by Chinese immigrants. It has dishes like babi pangang, nasi goreng, Peking duck, and pork or chicken in sweet and sour sauce. It has nothing or very little in common with authentic Chinese cuisine but it's pretty great in its own right. When I was a kid this felt like something exotic and often the restaurants that served this kind of food were very distinctly decorated. But nowadays many of these places have fallen out of favor and you can get most of these dishes from the supermarkets. In Belgium many of the Chinese immigrants who ran these place have turned to selling fries instead. Still I really like this cuisine because it reminds me of my childhood and the fun times I had eating in those places.

Portugues é mara

It's a wonderful thing when food is reimagined in this way. I became aware of these dishes trough the Yakuza games but I didn't know about the how and why. Great video!

I love Yoshoku so much, thank you Matthew for explaining the history!

Great insights into Japanese cuisine with relevance to Japanese history and how its food culture is shaped over the years. Nice video editing, pace, and presentation too! Good job!

Great and interesting video! But the music is sometimes very loud, especially when your friends reported from their McDonalds. I couldn't hear what the Thai and Vietnamese girls said.

It's so good to know that Hong Kong was liberated from the european colonial powers. The europeans really messed up with the whole world. What the british subjected China to was terrible; due to their ambition, they almost destroyed a nation with thousands of years. It's so good to see that Chinese are so resilient and they build up their nation back, restoring what foreigners greedy powers stole from them. A model for the whole Global South to follow. Mat the food be the only cultural heritage from the dark british era there.

I just found your channel and was excited to see a video that was about the Midwest! You even had the Columbus (my hometown) skyline in the opening. I had to rewind your video because I didn’t understand why you skipped over a state you clearly outlined in the thumbnail. Just came to say I thought that was mean-spirited and not in line with the open-mindedness and curiosity I was expecting having watched your other videos. I know it’s a meme to dunk on Ohio, but I only expect that from comedy channels and meme-makers. If you really didn’t have any content to add for Ohio you could have just left it out of the thumbnail. You made a conscious decision to highlight thumbing your nose at Ohio. Because it’s popular to do so? Because you actually hate Ohio? Not gonna lie, it actually hurt my feelings. I got excited to show my fiancée and then…that.

When looking at the title, I'd have thought you'd be covering some of Japan's minority foodways such as Ryukyuan & Ainu plus Hachijo, but yoshoku does (with tragic historical reasons folded in) have a counterpart in Korea known as yangsik (in contrast to hansik & those of Korea's native minorities such as the Jaegaseung & Jeju islanders, quite different from Korean food that's often known). In any case, yangsik is just as fascinating as yoshoku & can often be found in bunsik places

It's the geography. Potatoes were imported into an already refined society during the Columbian Exchange. Hence when a culture finds such transformative nourishment enabled by a trade based economy... It's always hard to see the forest through the trees.

A whole video on jelly donuts

For a moment I thought this video would be about Shojin Ryori.

Love the video 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾🔥

barbecue? the "low and slow" kind

wow, I thought u were just gonna explore the food itself, but the ideas behind it, mimicking the west, so on, so forth. You've gone way beyond,

Amazing video, instant subscribe

i love chicken korma and fish and chips

I love Yoshoku, particularly the fried fish and chicken cutlets ❤

"Didn't think people were going to defend Ohio" *Leaves out Ohio. As a native Cincinnatian, I have to stand up for it. Cincinnati Chili is strange but great. Even if you don't like the chili with spaghetti, it is great on its own, on a coney or with cream cheese as dip. It was invented by Greek immigrants and is pretty similar to Greek Kima which also influenced Qeema in India and Pakistan. Goetta is also an amazing sausage that comes from German immigrants who historically came to Cincinnati in large numbers in the 19th century. It is a sausage made from ground meat with steel cut oats mixed in to strech out the meat in hard times. These oats then soak in the rendering fat while the sausage is fried and become very crisp and flavorful. Mock Duck soup is also an old Cincinnati staple again originating from German immigrants. It is made from Calf's Head in a way meant to replicate the taste and texture of turtle meat. Andy Warhol once described it as one of his favorites. Franks Red Hot sauce, though associated with Buffalo, also originates from Cincinnati. Cincinnati is also known for its many Breweries and it's french pot style Ice Cream Graeters. Jewish Immigrants also manufactured Matzo in Cincinnati for several years under the brand Manischewitz. You could honestly just do a video about the food there and how it originates from a mix of European immigrants, people who escaped slavery in the south and Appalachian communities.

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10:42 I’m a absolute monarchist there is no evidence against it

I think for Japanese curry, it's actually the influence of Queen Victoria that led British Navy to adopt it as part of their food, and quite a number of Japanese military officer went to Britain as part of their training, leading to introduction of Curry in Japan. That's why the method of cooking is similar to a stew rather to an indian curry.

Thanks for being a star food journalist. The way you take food and interplay with a society's experience is masterful and engaging. Keep doing what your doing because your are doing amazing work. I can't wait to watch your future episodes.

Well done...great insight!

We have a restaurant in Baltimore called Ekiben and it is insanely good. Now I know the history of the name. So thanks for that

oversized sushi :D

Doria, the casserole rice dish also exists in Cantonese/Hong Kong Cafe cuisine. Doria also is taken from a potato dish called gratin where the potatoes are replaced with rice

Very good message at the end. Food must be one of the only things that has to remain out of politics and confrontations in our ever-polarizing world. Cuisine exchanges are fascinating and allow us to expand our minds. Nice video 👍

Great video! A lot of what you said really resonated with me because I've also been using food as a vehicle to explore culture, history, and especially how they change over time.

The truth about food and Cuisine may soon be learned by some of us , if we manage to survive the coming famine. Then we can talk about the truth about culture, and the human ego.

The Baked Rice is also done and quite common in Southern China, HK, Malaysia and Singapore. From the seafood one like in the video to chicken and mushroom.

This was a really good video!! Ever since I lived in Japan (13 years ago) I kind of have always wondered a bit about these types of dishes (but apparently not enough to google it myself hehe), so I was really happy to learn from this video. I wouldn't mind a part two with more indepth info about the different dishes and the inspiration behind them.

Thank you! I loved how you gave us a background for why these dishes exist. I found it particularly interesting how beef was not a regular part of the Japanese diet until the Meiji restoration and within roughly one hundred years Japan is now responsible for some of the most highly prized beef in the world. Thank

The Japanese let the Portuguese in first, B. Dutch came later

Me watching this eating a tasty crumpet with a cup of tea:

10:42 "we have less time off than medieval peasants" I feel like this often repeated statement ignores that peasants did grueling physical labor and that their "time off" was still work to guarantee their survival

love this channel justy found it

Thank you. I really enjoyed the video.

Great video! Reminds me of Hong Kong's food culture, where some of its quintessential food that you see in their cafes are heavily influenced by the British

Thank you. I knew about the isolation, of course. It’s nice to learn a major reason for it.

You’re the best man

Hmm, I recognize that American culinary traditions are not poor in absolute terms, but compared to cuisines from some Asian countries, there is just no comparison. There are places where the food changes significantly if you move a few miles in any direction.

Very well thought out video. Reminds me a lot of Hawaii and its seemingly endless melting pot of ethnicities, cultural beliefs, and the tasty food that came with or was born from it. Saimin, manapua, and meat jun are just a few that come to mind.

The remnants of (specifically) Portuguese influence still sticks around within Japan's yо̄shoku, which in my opinion permeates the cuisine more strongly than the other colonial powers, aside from probably the French. I'm surprised that one of Portugal's contributions, tempura, didn't get a mention.

One thing that you get wrong about this is that you are comparing it with western US. What you should you compare to is with Europe as that would be most western influences of Japanese came from. Like for example the curry is an European style of cooking with spices instead of the Indian way.

The craft of stuffing shit into a ball of rice and wrapping it in seaweed. How dumb is society getting that they need to make basic food a "craft food"

I hope this video pops of, came for a food video, stayed for a well told history lesson