The British Dish Japan Turned Into Its Favorite Comfort Food

Ask someone in Japan to name a comfort food and there is a good chance they will say kare raisu, curry rice, long before they mention sushi or ramen. It is the dish parents make on a weeknight, the flavor every school cafeteria serves, and one of the most eaten meals in the entire country, even though curry itself did not originate in Japan at all.

Curry arrived by way of the British, most likely introduced through the Royal Navy, and first appeared in Japanese cookbooks in 1872 during the Meiji period. The Imperial Japanese Navy adopted it soon after, swapping bread for rice and thickening the sauce with flour so it would not spill around a ship in rough seas, a practical fix that quietly shaped the dish for generations to come.

The dish moved quickly from naval galleys into civilian life. A Tokyo restaurant called Seiyoken put curry on its menu in 1877, and by 1905 Japan was producing its own curry powder domestically, which brought the price down enough for ordinary households to cook it regularly. Companies like S&B Foods and House Foods began mass producing curry powder in the 1920s, setting up the industry that still dominates today.

Home cooking took another leap forward after the war, when instant curry roux arrived in powder form in 1945 and block form in 1950, letting anyone turn a pot of vegetables and meat into curry in under an hour. In 1948, curry entered Japan's school lunch programs for the first time, introducing an entire generation of children to the dish at once.

In 1963, House Foods released Vermont Curry, a milder version sweetened with apples and honey that made the dish friendly for kids and cemented its place at the family dinner table. Five years later, in 1968, Otsuka Foods introduced Bon Curry, the first retort pouch curry in Japan, and curry rice earned its official status as yoshoku, a Western dish fully adopted into Japanese home cooking.

Today House Foods remains the market leader, and its CoCo Ichibanya chain has grown into one of the most recognizable curry restaurants in the world, letting customers choose their spice level and toppings like a build your own bowl. For a visitor to Japan, a plate of curry rice with a golden slab of tonkatsu on top is an easy, satisfying way to taste a piece of everyday Japanese life.