In Japan, there’s a dish called karē raisu, which is curry with meat/veggies that you eat with rice. It is pretty similar to curry dishes you may find in South Asia. But what is the origin of curry rice in Japan? Neither of Japan’s large neighbors Korea nor China have dishes that are very similar to Japanese curry rice.
So how did curry, a dish widely believed to have originated from South Asia, make it to Japan? Did Indian traders bring it? The Portuguese? Or the British? Or was it an original formulation that arose entirely separate from the curry found in South Asia?
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Japanese curry was based on British curry, but was adopted by the Japanese navy as a Western dish rather than being brought to Japan by the British. It was seen as a Japanese-friendly Western dish, and it seems that the sailors agreed.
The Japanese army liked that curry was effective at preventing beriberi, so they adopted it too, exposing even more young Japanese men to it.
Partly, it made it into mainstream Japanese cuisine as soldiers and sailors returned to regular Japanese society from the navy, but it was also adopted as a dish in institutional cooking (school and work canteens).
For more, see my previous answer in https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b223ix/how_and_when_did_curry_become_a_part_of_japanese/
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