A long time ago in a city far, far away, I was a fourth grader itching to cook my first dish. My class was going on a field trip, lunch was potluck, and I decided I would bring spaghetti — accompanied, of course, by the proud announcement that I cooked it myself.
The noodles were rather soggy, the only meat was sliced hotdogs, and the sauce was a combination of tomato sauce (sour) and banana ketchup (sweet). My classmates liked it (except for one girl who thought nothing of piercing the hotdog slices and leaving the noodles behind), and I was happy and proud.
Decades later, whenever the memory of the spaghetti from my fourth grade class field trip flashed through my mind (unbidden mostly), I chuckled (not without shame) and cringed at the same time. Whoever taught me how to cook spaghetti that way? I never could recall. Most probably, it was a recreation of the countless spaghetti dishes I had eaten at different homes on various occasions. Spaghetti was always served that way in the Philippines. At least, when I was a child.
I thought I never again had to think of that kind of cooking (surely, there was no need to recreate such an awful dish of canned tomato sauce, ketchup and hotdogs!) until I came upon a Japanese-language show on Netflix called Izakaya Bottakuri.
In Episode 8, the theme was childhood memories of food. The izakaya owner cooked soggy spaghetti with hotdogs, they called it naporitan and… well, I was so wide-eyed that my eyeballs could have popped out of their sockets. I had been to Japan more than once, and had eaten all the food I could manage, but I never encountered naporitan. Because, seriously, what kind of tourist looks for and orders spaghetti in Japan?
But what was more shocking to me was the similarity of Filipino spaghetti with Japanese spaghetti. Hotdogs. Ketchup. Both are as un-Italian as anything can be. Why is spaghetti in these two countries cooked with those two ingredients? I thought hard about it. When the answer finally dawned on me, I felt a bit stupid at not having realized the obvious much earlier. The Americans, of course. It doesn’t really take a genius to figure that out.
Spaghetti arrived in the Philippines and Japan via the Americans. Italy never colonized these countries — neither before nor after the fall of Constantinople — and Italian diaspora never reached Southeast Asia.
The Philippines was a U.S. colony from 1898 until 1946. During this period, and thereafter forever after, the country has been an avid consumer (a dumping ground, really) of everything American — including hotdogs, ketchup and American-style cooking.
After Japan lost in World War II, Allied forces led by the Americans occupied the country until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. As with any nation that played host to American military forces, willingly or unwillingly, food was shipped / flown in from the States to feed the soldiers stationed in Japan. Locals learned to adapt cooking styles that pleased the Americans — including serving spaghetti sauce on top of the noodles instead of tossing them together before serving like the Italians do.
Japanese-style ketchup spaghetti — or naporitan (also pronounced as napolitan) — was invented in 1945 by the head chef of Hotel New Grand in Yokohama to suck up to Gen. Douglas MacArthur who was occupying the hotel as his headquarters and, later — quite predictably and inevitably — as residence for American military officers. The original naporitan had tomato puree and bacon, but these were substituted with ketchup and hotdogs (both cheaper) for home cooking.
In case you’re wondering… I managed to replicate the naporitan from the Netflix show. Well, minus the soggy noodles.
And I’ve also gotten better at cooking Filipino-style sweet spaghetti with hotdogs. Here’s the recipe. No ketchup.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 400 grams ground beef
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- ⅓ cup finely chopped onion
- ⅓ cup finely chopped canned pimiento
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
- salt
- pepper
- 1 cup tomato sauce (see notes)
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste mixed with 1 cup bone broth
- 1 tablespoon sugar more if you want the sauce sweeter
- 3 hotdogs (beef frankfurters were used in this recipe) sliced into rings
- 200 grams spaghetti cooked al dente
- grated Parmesan to serve
- chopped parsley to garnish
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil in a pot.
- Add the ground beef. Cook over high heat, breaking up lumps, until lightly browned.
- Add the garlic, onion, pimiento, oregano and paprika to the beef.
- Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.
- Turn the heat down to medium and cook, stirring often, until the onion bits are softened and translucent.
- Pour in the tomato sauce and diluted tomato paste.
- Stir in the sugar. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Add more salt, pepper or sugar, or all of them, to get the balance that you like.
- Stir in the sliced frankfurters. Bring to a gentle boil.
- Set the heat to low, cover the pot and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Give the sauce a final taste and adjust the seasonings, if needed.
- Divide the cooked noodles among bowls.
- Ladle a generous amount of the meaty sauce over them.
- Sprinkle with Parmesan and parsley.
- Serve your Filipino-style sweet spaghetti with hotdogs with toast on the side.
Notes
Updated from a post originally published in October 6, 2023 and a recipe originally published in April 10, 2017.
