 |
Up to the middle of the Edo period, eel was prepared in much the same way throughout Japan, slit along the belly, gutted, and charcoal-grilled. Today, however, there are basically two kinds of eel kabayaki preparation, differing between eastern and western Japan, with Osaka the dividing point. Western Japan preserves the traditional method of preparation, cutting the eel open along its belly and grilling it as-is. In eastern Japan, the practice is to cut the eel along its back and steam it before grilling. The difference is in the texture of the grilled eel, the balance between firm and soft.
Shops specializing in kabayaki eel first emerged in the Edo period. Sometimes a shop would grill too many eels and a few would be left unsold. It was not unusual to find these day-old grilled eels lined up on the shop counter the next day, but they were hard and tasteless and did not sell well. In the search for a way to bring back the original flavor and texture, someone discovered that steaming did the trick. It didn’t take long to reach the conclusion that steaming the eel first—before grilling—might be even better, and the new method of preparation spread throughout eastern Japan. Slitting the eel along its back instead of belly was done to keep the soft underbelly meat intact during steaming.
In western Japan, people found that sandwiching the grilled eel between layers of hot cooked rice was equally effective in keeping the eel meat soft and appetizing. The resulting product was unagi don a one-bowl dish of rice topped with savory grilled eel. Unagi don became a popular dish throughout Japan. In eastern Japan, where rice and kabayaki eel had originally been eaten separately, the two were now combined in the same way as with una-jyu. |
 |
| Mr. & Mrs. Watanabe, proprietors of Kiyokawa, a traditional eel shop in business since 1874. |
|
