What is omurice? Is it Japanese, Korean or Taiwanese?
Omurice was born in Japan
Omurice, or omelette rice, is a Japanese rice-and-egg dish that fuses local cuisine with the Westerner’s love for ketchup. Annexation and war brought it to Korea and Taiwan.
Western dishes, including the omelette, were introduced to Japan during the last quarter of the 19th century. It was the Meiji era, Japan had discarded the hereditary class system, and opened its doors to Western technology and the modern capitalist system. That explains the extent of Western presence in Japan at the time that omurice was born in 1902 at a Western-style restaurant called Renga-tei in Tokyo’s Ginza district.
The Japanese introduced omurice to Korea and Taiwan, both of which were Japanese colonies until the end of World War II, where it became just as popular.
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