Perusing my cookbooks I noticed that the Japanese ones do not use tomato as an ingredient. Can people who know more than me about Japan confirm this impression? And if it is right: does anybody know why? And is this limited to Japanese Cuisine, or do other cuisines (Asian or not) also not use tomatoes?
I don’t know why it hasn’t been introduced into Japanese cooking but cherry tomatoes are fairly popular in bento boxes and salads in Japan often include tomatoes.
They’ve had tomatoes for centuries but it indeed hasn’t made it into their cooking. Possibly Japanese cooking is just very traditional?
(Disclaimer: My data is 30 years out of date, may tomatoes started being used more recently)
Thai food doesn’t really use tomatoes either, though I’ve occasionally seen bits of tomato in my Tom Yum soup. Many regional Indian cuisines happily adopted tomatoes (I qualify that because Indian cuisine is so diverse by region I’m sure there are regional styles where tomatoes are not used at all, especially near the border with China).
It may be a cultural thing-- use of cheese in Asian cuisine is almost nonexistant-- Asians apparently consider fermented dairy products to be disgusting, though they happily eat fermented beans, so go figure.
Do tomatoes grow well in Japan? That could be a consideration.
Cuisine is kind of strange; northern Europeans have been exposed to chile peppers for centuries as well, but with the exception of the southern nations, they aren’t very prevalent. At least not in the way that they were adopted in other parts of the world, especially in Asia.
I mean, you can get hot sauces and the odd transplanted spicy dish(vindaloo in the UK, for example), but on the whole, most actual European cuisine isn’t big on chiles, unless you’re in Hungary, Italy or Spain.
Maybe it’s something similar there- tomatoes just don’t quite mesh or something. Which might be the case; in my experience, tomatoes are either served raw and possibly dressed, or they’re usually cooked into a sauce, or something very close to one. From what I know of Japanese cuisine, it’s not big on sauces like that, unlike say… Italian, French, Indian or Mexican cuisine (all ones that use a lot of tomatoes).
In the case of cheese, part of that may also be that lactose intolerance is prevalent among people of East Asian descent; this source indicates that between 70% and 100% of them suffer from lactose intolerance.
Jalapeños and avocados have been enthusiastically incorporated into Sushi, so I don’t think you can say it’s tradition keeping tomatoes out.
I’ve had one Japanese dish with tomatoes several times at a restaurant that is unfortunately no longer with us. It was a kind of stew made in a pot of dashi with vegetables, meat, and udon noodles added and cooked at the table. I don’t recall the name, but it was more of a description of the style than referring to specific ingredients. I made a reasonable facsimile myself a couple of times, and now I have a hankering to make it again.
A quick search on ‘Japanese dishes with tomatoes’ brings up plenty of examples. Japanese restaurants in the US tend to concentrate on traditional dishes and sushi which don’t use tomatoes giving an incomplete view of the variety of foods eaten in Japan.
In Korean cooking at least tomatoes are treated as more a fruit than a vegetable. Growing up I ate tomatoes sliced up with a sprinkling of sugar on it as a dessert/snack item. That may have changed in recent years, as now there appears to be cheese incorporated into everything and that was definitely not the case when I was younger.
Tomatoes do turn up in green papaya salad, som tum. I think I’ve seen tomato in curries but that may be a North American restaurant adaptation.
And the tomatoes they do use (mostly in spicy soups & salads) tend to be underripe, sometimes verging on green with a slight tinge of red. Maybe rips tomatoes just don’t stay viable very long in the tropics so the markets don’t stock them.
In the past few years I have seen sandwich tomatoes begin to show up in indoor markets where they can be refrigerated.
[edit - don’t know why the quote tag isn’t working] [Fixed WE?]
AFAIK, tomatoes are not indigenous to Asia, and all the major Asian cuisines omit them. The Indians do use tomatoes in curries nowadays, and tomatoes are available in all Asian countries.
As for the question about growing tomatoes in Japan, I never saw any when I was there, but they would be grown in greenhouses if they do. The climate is not that suitable, being too wet. The rainy season in June and July has prolonged light rain and high humidity, perfect for making tomato plants rot. It happened to me this year, as we had heavy rain from mid-June and not all that much sun.
Just in case people don’t know which plants and animals weren’t available in the Old World (Europe, Asia, and Africa) or in the New World (North and South America) before 1492, there are lists of them in Articles
Tomatoes came from Central and South America in the 1500s and are a member of the nightshade family. While it is not true the fruit is poisonous, they have a checkered past.
Japanese food is fairly traditional. Maybe they don’t like the taste or texture? Do Japanese eat ketchup? Pasta sauce? Pizza? I saw Japanese eating all of these things.
Yes, it took a while, like potatoes, but it eventually caught on. Does the Japanese Cuisine use potatoes, BTW? Or sweet potatoes?
Eggplants are also a member of the nightshade family and Asians in general and Japanese in particular have no trouble handling them.
Paprika, as an aside, is in many languages the word for peppers, which are closely related to tomatoes. By your name you should be exceptionally well suited to answer my doubts 
One of the most beloved Chinese comfort dishes is 番茄炒蛋 (tomatoes scrambled with eggs). Tomatoes also feature in Vietnamese cuisine such as Cà Chua Nhồi Thịt which is tomatoes stuffed with ground pork. Tomatoes are used plenty all across Asia.
The traditional cuisines do not have tomatoes because historically they were not available. Any dishes with tomatoes are relatively recent creations. Of course, these days tomatoes are popular everywhere and have been incorpated into the local idiom.
Pizza is popular in Japan, and ketchup is widely available.
Traditional Japanese and Chinese cuisine has no dairy products, and cheese is not that popular even now, especially the stronger-flavored ones. This despite the fact that natto can only be compared to a very overripe Camembert!
Japan and China have sweet potatoes (imo in Japanese) but potatoes are not indigenous and not popular except as fries.
I’ve only been to Japan once. I learned how to say expressions like “Do you like natto”? The answer is no. But feed me fatty tuna sashimi for every meal, please.
Dammit! Want Sushi soooo bad right now, but I’ll be damned if I’m eating food made by hand right now.