While having dinner at a local Chinese restaurant, I suddenly thought, “Hmmm, I don’t think Japanese cuisine has a classic combo of tomato 🍅 and egg 🥚,” so I looked it up—and discovered an unexpected story. ↓ Summarized by LLM: 【The Mystery of Tomato and Egg 🍅🍳】 It all started with this question: “Why is ‘tomato × egg’ a staple in Chinese and Western cuisine, but not in Japanese cuisine?” The answer revealed a surprising history. 💡 Why it’s absent in Japanese cuisine Tomatoes arrived in Japan during the Edo period, but back then, they were feared as “poisonous” and grown only as ornamental (horticultural) plants. It wasn’t until the Taisho to Showa eras that people began eating them as vegetables—primarily raw (in salads) or as ketchup. Because of this, tomatoes never integrated into Japan’s traditional dashi-based culinary culture. 💡 Even in China, it’s a surprisingly recent dish! In China too, tomatoes were long treated as ornamental. The iconic national dish “stir-fried tomato and eggs” was actually invented in Shanghai during the 20th century (1920s–30s)! Chefs there created it, inspired by Western omelets—making it, in fact, a modern culinary innovation. That’s why it never made its way to Japan: during the time Japan was absorbing Chinese culture, this dish simply didn’t exist yet. The timing mismatch in culinary evolution is incredibly fascinating…!