30 July 2016
Eel day
It's a middle of summer and these days are really hot today was about 30 degrees in centigrade even in cool Sapporo. I smelled grilled eel (うなぎの蒲焼"Unagi no Kabayaki) when I went around my flat this evening. Then I remembered that today is midsummer day of the ox (土用の丑の日"Doyo-no-Ushi-no-hi"), which is as known as the day to eat grilled eel in Japan.
This tradition allegedly started in 1800s. There's many stories about the origin of this tradition, but the most popular one is restaurant owner who was in slump selling eel in midsummer asked Gennai Hiraga(平賀源内). Then he proposed to set midsummer day of the ox as the day to eat grilled eel.
Now we can buy grilled eel almost everywhere in Japan on midsummer day of the ox, we can even buy it at convenience stores. But the price of eels are getting expensive due to lack of elver (glass eel). Most of eels which we eat in Japan are artificially raised in ponds and lakes in Japan, China and Taiwan. These elver are came from many places including Europe. Because there's massive demand of eating eel in Japan, the amount of Japanese eel got shortage, then they started to import elver from Europe.
According to the statistics, about 70% of eels are consumed in Japan. So, now both Japanese eels and Europe eels have been added to "endangered" category of Japanese government's Red List of animals. I went to nearby supermarket and checked the price of grilled eel and that was about 2,000 JPY (about 20 USD). Maybe we cannot buy eel in near future... I hope that won't happen.
Anyway, I didn't eat eel today same as 54% of Japanese people. According to NHK 46% of Japanese people answered that they ate grilled eel today.
Thanks.
This tradition allegedly started in 1800s. There's many stories about the origin of this tradition, but the most popular one is restaurant owner who was in slump selling eel in midsummer asked Gennai Hiraga(平賀源内). Then he proposed to set midsummer day of the ox as the day to eat grilled eel.
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| Hitsumabushi (櫃まぶし) One of eel foods of Japan |
According to the statistics, about 70% of eels are consumed in Japan. So, now both Japanese eels and Europe eels have been added to "endangered" category of Japanese government's Red List of animals. I went to nearby supermarket and checked the price of grilled eel and that was about 2,000 JPY (about 20 USD). Maybe we cannot buy eel in near future... I hope that won't happen.
Anyway, I didn't eat eel today same as 54% of Japanese people. According to NHK 46% of Japanese people answered that they ate grilled eel today.
Thanks.
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