The acclaim is quite recent, I assure you. I don't imagine for a moment you would have felt the same way back in the 1970s or early 80s.

I've no doubt it fits beautifully with your prejudices, oops, perceptions of these diverse and vibrant cuisines.

My opinion is that China is ill served by the France comparison, even taking into account variations in French regional cuisine, it's just too small and narrow to encompass the staggering breadth of what is and has been (pre Cultural Revolution) on offer across China.

With so many techniques and ideas to pillage and plunder, surely the most interesting part when considering similarities in cuisines with the countries surrounding this enormous empire is "why did certain foods get adopted and not others?".

I'm still considering the same questions today with regards to Japan, how did prawn gratin, Napolitan Spaghetti, corn pottage, menchikatsu, beef curry all become popular Japanese foods?

More importantly, when the rest of the world can choose the 'original' version (of the following dishes) why is it that Ramen, Tempura and Tonkatsu are becoming so immensely popular elsewhere? Most bewildering to me is why is anybody eating the British inspired Japanese Curry when there are a surfeit of delicious alternatives?

When looking at the the past one can easily attribute the successful export of certain foods to the influence of religion on the culture, now the reasons aren't nearly so clear cut. And this influence of fashions and trends is muddied further when people make choices in deciding and declaring their preferences as a way of defying the prodding of popular culture. Now that Japanese food has attained a high status in many societies this causes an inevitable backlash against it resulting in a convoluted inverse snobbery in some.