Japan and India

Japanese cuisine, known collectively as washoku, developed around principles of seasonality, minimal intervention, and visual harmony, with roots partly in Buddhist temple cooking, or shojin ryori, which excludes meat and emphasizes vegetables, tofu, and grains prepared with careful technique. Kaiseki, the formal multi-course meal that represents the pinnacle of Japanese refinement, evolved from the simple meal once served before a tea ceremony into an elaborate sequence of small, seasonally attuned dishes, each chosen to reflect a specific moment of the year, or "shun," when an ingredient is at its peak. In 2013, UNESCO inscribed washoku itself on its Intangible Cultural Heritage list, recognizing not a single dish but a broader set of social practices: seasonal ingredient use, nutritional balance, aesthetic presentation, and the cultural significance of shared New Year meals.