Italian lessons

PETITE PORTIONS, delicately prepared and aesthetically presented: in every informed image of Japanese food, the same values recur. Like poems of few, well chosen words, or a love-letter made appealing by perfect folding and refined calligraphy, Japanese dishes should reveal their merits only to educated sensibilities and disciplined appetites. Spaghetti napolitan, however, subverts expectations: a concoction inspired by post-war envy of crude, hearty G.I. rations in an occupied land, too wary of starvation to maintain traditions of affected austerity. Piles of tomato-tinted noodles slither under lashings of ketchup, garnished with frankfurters — sometimes served whole on top of the heap, like the topmost garnish of choucroute alsacienne. The effect of the clashing colours and synthetic flavours is revolting. Shockingly (because Japanese food is relatively inhospitable to foreign influences) it’s become…