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The Japanese added eel to their diet sometime during the Nara period (710–784). Back then eel was usually chopped into pieces, skewered on bamboo picks, salted, and grilled. But the eel is a scavenger fish that eats the bacteria it finds on the river bottom, and salt alone cannot mask its muddy flavor. By the Muromachi period (1392–1573), a spicy seasoning made from such ingredients as vinegar, miso and mustard was being used for flavoring. Later, during the Edo period (1603–1868), eel was prepared by basting with sake and soy sauce before grilling and was served with a miso and sansho (Japanese pepper) condiment.
There is a clear progression over the centuries in the way eel was prepared—from simply chopping into pieces to splitting and gutting before grilling—as people sought to make this muddy fish more palatable. The many experiments reached a benchmark in the middle of the Edo period with the advent of mirin, a new type of sweet seasoning made from fermented glutinous rice and koji, a malt seeded with aspergillus to start fermentation. A special grilling sauce combining the glucose in mirin and the amino acid in soy sauce was found to be an ideal agent for getting rid of the eel’s muddy taste and making it more flavorful. The salty-sweet flavor also proved an excellent counterpoint to bland, boiled rice. In a very short time, Kabayaki eel grilled with a mirin-based sauce became enormously popular. |
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| A tender, grilled kabayaki eel. The lacquer box has two layers. Hot water in the bottom box keeps the eel warm. |
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