is a form of popular Okinawan stir fry dish, generally containing vegetable

Vegetable

The noun vegetable usually means an edible plant or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit or seed. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant....

s, tofu

Tofu

is a food made by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into soft white blocks. It is part of East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and others. There are many different varieties of tofu, including fresh tofu and tofu...

, and some kind of meat

Meat

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

 or fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

. Luncheon meat

Cold cut

Cold cuts are cheeses or precooked or cured meat, often sausages or meat loaves, that are sliced and usually served cold on sandwiches or on party trays. They can be bought pre-sliced in vacuum packs at a supermarket or grocery store, or they can be purchased at a delicatessen or deli counter,...

 (such as Spam

Spam (food)

Spam is a canned precooked meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation, first introduced in 1937. The labeled ingredients in the classic variety of Spam are chopped pork shoulder meat, with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch as a binder, and sodium nitrite as a preservative...

 or Danish Tulip), egg

Egg (food)

Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...

, moyashi

Moyashi

or is Japanese for "sprout." It is most commonly used in referring to mung bean or black matpe bean, but can also be used for the larger soybean sprout as well.Moyashi is a common ingredient in many Japanese dishes such as stir fries and soups....

 and gōyā

Bitter melon

Momordica charantia, called bitter melon or bitter gourd in English, is a tropical and subtropical vine of the family Cucurbitaceae, widely grown in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean for its edible fruit, which is among the most bitter of all fruits...

 (bitter melon) are some other common ingredients. Spam is not typically used in mainland Japan; however, spam is more common in Okinawa due primarily to the historical influence of the introduction of spam by the US Navy. Chanpurū is Okinawan

Okinawan language

Central Okinawan, or simply Okinawan , is a Northern Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama, Kumejima, Tonaki, Aguni, and a number of smaller peripheral islands...

 for "something mixed" and the word is sometimes used to refer to the culture of Okinawa, as it can be seen as a mixture of traditional Ryūkyū, Chinese

Culture of China

Chinese culture is one of the world's oldest and most complex. The area in which the culture is dominant covers a large geographical region in eastern Asia with customs and traditions varying greatly between towns, cities and provinces...

, Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

, Southeast Asian and North-American culture. The term originates from the Malay or Indonesian word campur , meaning "mix".

Long a local specialty only found on Okinawa, chanpurū has in recent years, through television shows and increased interest in Okinawan culture, spread to many restaurants on mainland Japan.

Gōyā chanpurū

The quintessential chanpurū, gōyā chanpurū consists of gōyā (bitter melon

Bitter melon

Momordica charantia, called bitter melon or bitter gourd in English, is a tropical and subtropical vine of the family Cucurbitaceae, widely grown in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean for its edible fruit, which is among the most bitter of all fruits...

), egg, tōfu, and either spam

Spam (food)

Spam is a canned precooked meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation, first introduced in 1937. The labeled ingredients in the classic variety of Spam are chopped pork shoulder meat, with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch as a binder, and sodium nitrite as a preservative...

 or thinly sliced pork

Pork

Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....

. It often also includes vegetables such as carrots.

Tōfu chanpurū

Tofu stir-fried with vegetables and spam, bacon, thinly sliced pork belly, or canned tuna. Unlike tofu from mainland Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Okinawan tofu is firm and does not fall apart when stir fried. It is considered best form to crumble the tofu into the frying pan by hand, so as to avoid uniform squares.

Fu chanpurū

Fu

Wheat gluten (food)

Wheat gluten, also called seitan , wheat meat, mock duck, gluten meat, or simply gluten, is a food made from the gluten of wheat...

is a kind of flatbread made from wheat bran, water, and eggs. It is stir fried with vegetables and a meat as above.

Sōmen chanpurū

Sōmen

Somen

are very thin, white Japanese noodles made of wheat flour. The noodles are usually served cold and are less than 1.3 mm in diameter. The distinction between sōmen and the next thicker wheat noodles hiyamugi and even thicker Japanese wheat noodles udon is mostly the size of the noodle...

(or sōmin in Okinawan) are very thin noodles resembling angel hair pasta. It is stir-fried lightly in oil with green onions and meat as above.

Cultural chanpurū

Chanpurū (sometimes written and pronounced champloo) is Okinawan

Okinawan language

Central Okinawan, or simply Okinawan , is a Northern Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama, Kumejima, Tonaki, Aguni, and a number of smaller peripheral islands...

 for "something mixed" and Okinawans take great pride in describing their culture and traditional attitudes to people and food as chanpurū. They will cite examples of their happy acceptance of foreign cultural items in the popularity of awamori

Awamori

Awamori is an alcoholic beverage indigenous to and unique to Okinawa, Japan. It is made from rice, and is not a direct product of brewing but of distillation ....

(originally a liquor from Thailand), tacos albeit with added rice (from Mexico) and rafute (a Chinese meat dish).