Japanese Food or Western Food?

　Is tonkatsu  a Japanese dish or a Western dish?// This question cannot be easily answered and people have a lot of different opinions about it.// Tonkatsu  is a pork cutlet — a dish usually associated with Western food.// It is covered with breadcrumbs, deep-fried and eaten with a brown sauce.//
　Many Japanese people regard it as Western food in terms of how it is cooked; however, it cannot be found on any European menu.// It was indeed created in Japan, but you won’t find it listed on a menu of traditional Japanese food.//
　A Japanese cultural anthropologist, Ishige Naomichi, cleverly resolved this difficult problem.// “Tonkatsu  differs from sautéed pork in that it is cut into several pieces to be eaten with chopsticks.// That makes it a Japanese dish.// On the other hand, sautéed pork is to be eaten with a knife and fork, so it should be considered a Western dish.”// In short, what matters is the way we eat food.// This idea suggests a close relationship between food and silverware.//