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The eel shop with the best-tasting sauce attracted the most customers, and shops vied with each other to create their own unique recipes. “We’ve been keeping our sauce going for the whole 130 years since we first opened for business. We simply add to it when the stock gets low.” So says Yoshie Watanabe, proprietress of Kiyokawa, one of the older eel shops in the Nihombashi section of Tokyo. Kiyokawa’s secret sauce is kept in a special ceramic pot in the kitchen. Everyday, skewered eels are repeatedly dipped into the sauce as they are being grilled. When the sauce in the pot gets low, a new batch is added in a process that has been continued for decades. “Our sauce is steeped in the savory flavor of grilled eel. It’s taken years to get this flavor. Our sauce is something we really treasure,” says Watanabe.
The savory flavor of grilled eel basted with salty-sweet sauce quickly became a popular food among the common people of the Edo period who had until then subsisted primarily on bland rice and pickles. The rich, flavorful eel was prized as an invigorating food particularly suited to be eaten together with a carbohydrate like rice. The custom of eating eel (unagi) on the day of the ox (ushi-no-hi) began in the Edo period. |
