Another very interesting topic. I wasn't aware that there were such widely used/known terms for this way of eating. I agree that it seems like a contributing factor is that the Japanese diet consisted of a small portion of very salty foods to be eaten with rice. My father loves to eat just japanese pickles and rice and can make a meal out of pickles, rice and miso soup. While this is changing, I also agree that kids like to eat things one at a time, but it is probably just a phase. My brother, like a lot of kids, used to compulsively separate his foods for fear that they would touch on the plate (thus, separated-style plates for children). Now that he is an adult he always eats each item together and combines meat, vegetables and starches in each bite, as do most adults (in my estimation) no matter what type of food they are eating. I might be wrong, but I think the triangular way of eating and combining all foods in the mouth at once is a universal way of enjoying a meal. Take certain african cuisines for instance, where the bread is used as the utensil with which to eat a flavorful stew/curry-like main dish, or indian cuisine in which curries are meant to be eaten with rice and daal and yogurt is meant to be eaten at the same time as a spicy curry to cut the heat of the spices. Of course it is probably not so simple as a lot can be lost in translation, especially from Japanese to English and I do find it particularly interesting that there are actual terms for this style of eating in Japanese. This says a lot about the cultural significance of the way in which people eat and I can't say that I am surprised at the lack of such terminology in English.