Naporitan or Napolitan is the name of a pasta

Pasta

Pasta is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine, now of worldwide renown. It takes the form of unleavened dough, made in Italy, mostly of durum wheat , water and sometimes eggs. Pasta comes in a variety of different shapes that serve for both decoration and to act as a carrier for the...

 dish, which is popular in 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...

. The dish consists of spaghetti

Spaghetti

Spaghetti is a long, thin, cylindrical pasta of Italian origin. Spaghetti is made of semolina or flour and water. Italian dried spaghetti is made from durum wheat semolina, but outside of Italy it may be made with other kinds of flour...

, tomato ketchup

Ketchup

Ketchup is a sweet-and-tangy condiment typically made from tomatoes, vinegar, sugar or high-fructose corn syrup and an assortment of...

 or a tomato-based sauce, onion

Onion

The onion , also known as the bulb onion, common onion and garden onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. The genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion The onion...

, button mushroom

Button mushroom

Agaricus bisporus—known variously as the common mushroom, button mushroom, white mushroom, table mushroom, champignon mushroom, crimini mushroom, Swiss brown mushroom, Roman brown mushroom, Italian brown, Italian mushroom, cultivated mushroom, or when mature, the Portobello mushroom—is an edible...

s, green peppers, sausage

Sausage

A sausage is a food usually made from ground meat , mixed with salt, herbs, and other spices, although vegetarian sausages are available. The word sausage is derived from Old French saussiche, from the Latin word salsus, meaning salted.Typically, a sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made...

, bacon

Bacon

Bacon is a cured meat prepared from a pig. It is first cured using large quantities of salt, either in a brine or in a dry packing; the result is fresh bacon . Fresh bacon may then be further dried for weeks or months in cold air, boiled, or smoked. Fresh and dried bacon must be cooked before eating...

 and Tabasco sauce

Tabasco sauce

Tabasco sauce is the brand name for a hot sauce produced by US-based McIlhenny Company of Avery Island, Louisiana. Tabasco sauce is made from tabasco peppers , vinegar, and salt, and aged in white oak barrels for three years. It has a hot, spicy flavor...

. Naporitan is claimed to be from Yokohama

Yokohama

is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...

. An instant Naporitan is also available in Japan today.

Origin

It was created by Shigetada Irie ,, the general chef of the New Grand Hotel in Yokohama, when he was inspired by one of the military rationing of GHQ

Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers

Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers was the title held by General Douglas MacArthur during the Occupation of Japan following World War II...

, which was spaghetti mixed with tomato ketchup.

Name

The chef named the dish after Naples, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 (hence "napoli"). However, no dish similar to the Japanese Naporitan is known to originate from Naples. Phonetically, the Japanese language

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 does not contain the western "L" sound

Japanese speakers learning r and l

Japanese possesses one liquid consonant, a flap that varies between lateral and central . English has two: an alveolar lateral approximant and rhotic consonant of varying phonetic properties centered around...

. Spellings in the Roman alphabet can vary. The spelling Naporitan is derived from the usual romanization of Japanese

Romanization of Japanese

The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is known as , less strictly romaji, literally "Roman letters", sometimes incorrectly transliterated as romanji or rōmanji. There are several different romanization systems...

, while the spelling Napolitan takes the origin of the name into account.

Recipe

Ingredients:

• 7 oz. spaghetti
• 1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1/2 small onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 lb sausage or ham, sliced
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 2 tsp butter
• 2 tsp vegetable oil
• salt and pepper to season

Preparation:
Put about 8 cups of water in a large pot and add 2 Tbsp of salt. Bring to a boil on high heat and cook spaghetti according to package directions.
Meanwhile, heat vegetable oil in a large skillet and stir-fry onion, bell pepper, and sausage on medium heat until softened. Season with salt and pepper.
Add drained spaghetti in the skillet and stir-fry with other ingredients. Add ketchup and stir-fry the spaghetti. Mix butter in and stop the heat.

• Makes 2 servings