A coloring page of Japanese curry rice: one oval plate, curry on the left with chunks of meat and vegetables sitting in it, a mound of rice on the right, and a spoon resting on the rim. The two halves meet along a single curved line, which makes this an easy page to plan — one warm colour on one side, the white of the paper left alone on the other. Free to download and print as a PDF, no registration needed.
🗣 Conversation Starters — for care activities and family time
“Do you like curry rice? What did the curry at home taste like?”
“Which ingredient do you most want to find in your curry?”
“Fukujinzuke or pickled rakkyo — which do you put on the side?”
How long has curry been eaten in Japan?
Curry arrived in the early Meiji era, and it came by way of Britain rather than directly from India. That detour explains almost everything odd about Japanese curry: it is thickened with a flour-and-fat roux, it is mild and slightly sweet, and it is eaten off a plate with a spoon. It was expensive restaurant food at first. The Imperial Navy adopting it for shipboard meals is the reason usually given for its spread, although the familiar story that it was introduced to fight beriberi is a popular account rather than a documented decision. Through the Taisho and Showa eras it settled in as home cooking, and ready-made roux blocks in the 1950s finished the job.
Why does Japanese curry use a roux block?
A curry roux block — flour, fat, curry powder and seasoning pressed into a bar that you snap up and drop into the pot — is a Japanese invention of the 1950s, and S&B Foods is usually credited with an early one, though which product was strictly first is argued over. The appeal is plain enough: no blending of spices, no separate thickening step, and the same result every time. You will often see the claim that Japan eats close to eight billion plates of curry a year; that number comes from industry estimates repeated for decades rather than from any official count, so read it as a way of saying “an enormous amount”.
What are the red pickles served with curry?
Fukujinzuke is a soy-and-mirin pickle of daikon, aubergine, lotus root and other vegetables chopped small, and it is often dyed a startling red. Pickled rakkyo — a small allium, sharper and crunchier — is the other usual choice. The pairing is generally traced to the dining rooms of NYK Line’s Europe-bound ships in the Taisho era, where mango chutney had been served alongside the curry and was swapped for something closer to Japanese taste; that is the account normally given rather than a documented moment. Neither pickle is drawn on this page, so if you want them there is room on the rim of the plate.
