When my daughter, Rena, was growing up in Tokyo in the 1970s, we lived in Ogikubo, a short walk from the train station. On her way to and from youchien ("kindergarten") we would pass through the old marketplace, a maze of alleys with stalls selling household gadgets and food. Just beyond was our local Seiyu depaato ("department store"), snugly set into a block of fast food restaurants. Among the ramen noodle shops were McDonald's, Mister Donut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Baskin Robbins, known as satee wan for the 31 flavors of ice cream it supposedly sold, although Rena and I counted only 10 flavors.

KFC and MacDonalds have become familiar sights in Japan

At the time, the Japanese menus at these "American" restaurants were not significantly different from their true American counterparts on the other side of the Pacific, although there were some Japanese peculiarities. The most frustrating of these for Americans was not being able to order according to personal preference. Hamburgers always came with mustard, ketchup,and onions. Drumsticks and wings always outnumbered breasts (the Japanese think that dark meat is tastier than white meat).This never seemed to bother Rena's Japanese friends, who ate the burgers and chicken as served. To the horror of all those watching, Rena would pick off the onions, one by one. She did learn to like dark meat chicken, however.

For the first five or six years of operations in Japan, most American food outlets followed a similar approach: they began with a very selective, fairly "authentic" and conservative menu, presented and priced to meet Japanese expectations. At this introductory stage, the very "foreignness" of the food seemed stylish and appealing to the Japanese.

By the late 70s, however, interesting hybrid variations began to crop up. Mister Donut introduced an ("sweet bean paste") as an alternative to jelly in its donuts, and "31" offered matcha (a kind of green tea) and ogura ("sweet red bean") ice cream. This was more than just the coincidental borrowing of an indigenous flavoring to make American donuts and ice cream appeal to the Japanese. For such hybrid foods to survive, and thrive, they must satisfy some deeper cultural "logic."

In Japan elaborate sugar and rice flour confections have been consumed with tea (both ceremonial matcha and the more ordinary sencha) for centuries. Since many of these tea cakes are filled with sweet bean paste, an-filled donuts make sense to the Japanese. Similarly, the Japanese have enjoyed kaki-gouri (shaved ice drizzled with sweet syrups) for a very long time. In fact, there are tales told of transporting huge blocks of ice from the mountains to satisfy the noble appetites of the Shogun in the 18th century! Since one of the most popular kaki-gouri flavors is Uji Kintoki (Uji, the name of a place, near Kyoto famous for its tea, refers to the tea-flavored syrup on top, and kintoki refers to the sweet red beans on the bottom) it's not surprising that the Japanese came up with this flavor for ice cream.

Recent additions to the Mister Donut menu follow a similar pattern of adaptation and assimilation. A Japanese turn-of-the-century snack that continues to be enjoyed today is called daigaku imo or "University Potato." The name refers to the students who first popularized this snack consisting of chunks of fried sweet potato, glazed in a honey-like syrup and sprinkled with black sesame seeds. In the fall of 1992, Mister Donut introduced a new line of muffins. What do you think the most popular flavor was, particularly among college kids? You guessed it, sweet potato with black sesame!

This type of functional adaptation is not limited to sweets by any means. McDonald's, which began operations in Japan in the summer of 1971, has been selling its french fried potatoes without ketchup to the Japanese public from the start (most Japanese think ketchup is too messy for finger food). Last fall they decided to spice up their fries by offering customers a choice of four different seasoned salts: nori (a kind of seaweed), curry, barbecue, and Mexican. I couldn't get statistics from the company to either confirm or deny my hunch that the most popular flavor was nori, but I do know that most children brought up in Japan, regardless of their nationality, adore nori-flavored potato chips and o-senbei ("rice crackers").

At McDonald's in Japan, you can choose from nori (a kind of seaweed popular as a furi-kake topping for rice), curry, barbecue, and Mexican. The fries are called Makku Furai Poteito.

In addition to the functional adaptation of ingredients and cooking techniques, there is another important factor in the process of culinary acculturation: ritual association. In other words, the Japanification process requires that American foods find a cultural niche in some Japanese ceremony or event. In this respect, Kentucky Fried Chicken was the first, and arguably the most successful, American transplant in Japan. From the start in the fall of 1970, the joint venture of Pepsico and Mitsubishi Trading Company seemed to understand and appreciate the dietary quirks and marketing challenges of Japan. They immediately expanded their menu to suit local rituals. The first major accommodation was the introduction of roast chicken at Christmastime.

Those of you with a quizzical expression on your face right now probably have not lived in Japan within the past 20 years, while those of you who are chuckling softly remember the burnished brown chicken legs, tied decoratively at the "ankle" with silver foil and red ribbon, that would appear during the month of December at KFCs throughout Japan. In the Japanese scheme of things, Christmas is a secular holiday and the menu consists of roast chicken legs and dekoreishon keiki (cake with gobs of decoratively piped buttercream). The fact that this Japanese ritual (Kurisumasu) originated in a foreign land makes it only more "logical" for the Japanese to celebrate it with foreign foods.

In the cross-cultural culinary business, sometimes indigenous foods get repackaged, too. Last year, Nihon KFC transformed Hokkaido salmon, which is usually salted and savored in grilled chunks, into a fried fish sandwich, similar to McDonald's popular Filet-o-Fish.

Market pressure to remain responsive to food fashions often produces strange, multi-cultural hybrids. Perhaps the most ridiculous, by American thinking, was the brief popularity of Nihon KFC's tira misu, a gooey puddinglike confection inspired by the Italian dessert that goes by the same name.

Kentucky Fried Chicken is affectionately known as Kentakkii in Japan. (TV commercials generally feature strains of "My Old Kentucky Home.") The chicken itself is identical to that served in the US, but as of last fall, yaki-musubi ("grilled riceballs") replaced biscuits in the dinner sets. This banner outside the KFC Ginza branch reads: Kentakkii ni au na, kore. This goes with KFC, doesn't it. This slogan is an example of "inverted syntax," a colloquial touch. The normal word order would be Kore (wa) Kentakkii ni au na.

More important to the Japanification process than mere food fads, though, was Nihon KFC's efforts to incorporate deeply rooted Japanese culinary practices into their "American" menu. The most significant of these was the introduction last fall of yaki musubi (toasted riceballs) as a replacement for biscuits with their fried chicken.

Indeed, Japan KFC seems to be coming full circle in the acculturation process, with the creation of a subsidiary to produce and sell their version of yakitori (chicken grilled on skewers). And, their PR people tell me, the next move will be to open a wa-fuu bentou ten (Japanese-style boxed lunch shop) near their headquarters in Ebisu.

Similarly, McDonald's Japan recognized the importance of rice when it introduced two types of karei raisu ("curry rice," white rice served with a thick curry-flavored gravy): beef and chicken. Although the origins of this thoroughly Japanese dish might have been in the sub-continent of India more than a hundred years ago, the currently popular dish bears little, if any, resemblance to true Indian curries. Japanese curry rice is, however, a cheap, convenient meal for harried housewives and mothers, students cramming for exams, and salaried bachelors.

A further indication of the Japanification of McDonald's is the less publicized fact that, in their shop near the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, omiotsuke ("miso soup") is available from 7-9 AM.

Americans living in Japan often speak wistfully of the original fast-food chains, not understanding that their compatriots across the Pacific are equally responsible for similar changes to Japanese food in the United States. Just fifteen years ago the avocado was inspiring a new kind of sushi, the California roll, and fresh shiitake mushrooms were being cultivated in America to join other types of "wild" mushrooms in continental-style soups and sauces.

More significantly, the service and presentation of Japanese food in the United States has changed to accommodate American eating habits: soup is brought to the table at the beginning of the meal, and single pieces of nigiri-zushi (the familiar ovals of vinegared rice with slices of fresh fish) are served. The custom in Japan is to serve soup at the end of the meal, and,due to an unfortunate culinary pun, nigiri-zushi are traditionally served in pairs (one piece, hito kire, can also mean "to cut a man down").

Elizabeth Andoh is an American journalist and business consultant who lives in Tokyo, specializing in Japanese foodways.