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Imported and adapted foods

Japan has a long history of importing food from other countries, some of which are now part of Japan's most popular cuisine. Ramen is considered an important part to their culinary history, to the extent where in survey of 2,000 Tokyo residents, instant ramen came up many times as a product they thought was an outstanding Japanese invention. Believed to have originated in China, ramen became popular in Japan after the Second Sino-Japanese war (1937–1945), when many Chinese students were displaced to Japan.

Curry is another popular imported dish and is ranked near the top of nearly all Japanese surveys for favorite foods. The average Japanese person eats curry at least once a week. The origins of curry, as well many other foreign imports such as pan or bread, are linked to the emergence of yōshoku, or western cuisine. Yōshoku can be traced as far back as the late Muromachi period (1336–1573) during a culinary revolution called namban ryori (南蛮料理), which means "Southern barbarian cooking", as it is rooted in European cuisine. This cuisine style was first seen in Nagasaki, which served as the point of contact between Europe and Japan at that point in time. Food items such as potatoes, corn, dairy products, as well as the hard candy kompeito (金平糖), spread during this time. This cuisine became popular in the Meiji period, which is considered by many historians to be when Japan first opened itself to the outside world.

Bread was not a traditional food in Japan, but shokupan, or Japanese milk bread, was developed and came into broad use after the American response to post-World War II Japanese rice shortages included relief shipments of wheat.

Today, many of these imported items still hold a heavy presence in Japan.