Burgers Japanese style

The Japanese are considered to have a genius for adaptation rather than invention, taking something that already exists and improving it instead of creating something from scratch. There have been many examples over the years in the consumer electronics and automobile industries, among others.

The opposite has been the case with Japanese food. Their inventions, such as sushi, are now a standard menu option overseas. It’s even sold in a cafeteria across the street from Penn Station along with ordinary American food (by Koreans). Their adaptations of such dishes as pizza, however, do not hold much appeal for people outside the country. But as the Nishinippon Shimbun reported recently in its print edition, the Japanese modification of the American hamburger is starting to surge in popularity.

This version of the hamburger was created in a Sasebo restaurant in 1950 to cater to the tastes of Americans stationed at the naval base in Nagasaki Prefecture. It is made with fluffier buns, juicier meat, an omelet, bacon strips, and lettuce. The Sasebo burger comes in various sizes, with the largest measuring about 30 centimeters in diameter.

The article says it’s making a “comeback”, but I’m not sure it ever went away. It’s been regularly served in some Sasebo restaurants over the years, but now it’s winning converts nationwide. A Sasebo native opened the Zats Burger Café in Tokyo three years ago, and he now runs three shops in the area that sell 450 burgers a day.

One of the diners quoted in the article, Miho Uchida, is reported as driving from Fukuoka City to Sasebo to dine on a Sasebo burger. What the article doesn’t mention, however, is that the drive from Fukuoka City to Sasebo takes at least two hours.

Here’s an article that appeared in the English-language version of the Asahi Shimbun. They quote Mihoko Oniyama, a representative of the Sasebo tourist commission, making a comment contradicting my suggestion that the Sasebo burger is an adaptation:

“We don’t consider the hamburger a foreign food. For us it’s our traditional regional dish.”

Yutaka Ogura, the owner of another Sasebo burger joint called Big Man, might straddle the fence in the invention/adaptation debate. He got into the business when a friend visited America years ago and suggested that Japanese needed to eat more meat. But Ogura has a definite Japanese approach to the dish:

(Ogura) insists that his burgers aren’t fast food.
“This is slow food,” says Ogura. “There’s time put into it, and it requires patience … It’s a handmade burger.”

Isn’t it just a matter of time before someone opens up a Sasebo burger shop in the U.S.?