# Did the Japanese occupation bring any culinary imports back to Japan? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [August 24, 2021, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-japanese-occupation-bring-any-culinary-imports-back-to-japan/949426 "2021-08-24T09:17:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 10
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2021, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-japanese-occupation-bring-any-culinary-imports-back-to-japan/949426/10 "2021-08-25T08:26:07Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > The Japanese certainly are open to adopting new foods now, not sure how they’ve felt about it in the past. As I understand it, no occupation or war was necessary for the Japanese to learn to make bread from the Portuguese in the 16th century, and they still call it _pan_ [citation needed] today. And [tempura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempura) also developed from Portuguese ingredients around the same time, the name included. Japan has not only imported all sorts of Chinese foodstuff and coocking techniques, but [curry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_curry) from India as well, though they make it mild. The only thing Japan seems to ignore are cooked tomatoes, though they use the cherry variety in salads and bento boxes, it seems, as I was told in this [thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-japanese-cuisine-seem-to-use-no-tomatoes/921967). ETA: Oh, yes! And German beer, they adopted that one too. And still brew an acceptable concoction to this day. No occupation involved in that one either. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-japanese-occupation-bring-any-culinary-imports-back-to-japan/949426)._