Grilled eel in the hottest mid-summer 2014/08/02
Summer in Japan is extremely hot and sticky. Average highest temperature of the day during July and August is over 30 degrees in Tokyo with average humidity around 70%.
High humidity is especially troublesome and makes people feel summer weariness and also lose appetite.
To fight back against hot and sticky summer, Japanese have been contriving in various ways to obtain stamina by taking these foods as edamame (green soy bean), nourishing grated Japanese yam, garlic, pickled plum, cold fermented rice duce or traditional unheated sake and so on. Grilled eel is the most popular champion among all of these stamina foods.
However eel is basically very fulsome and it is essential and important to prepare carefully and nicely for cooking. There are said to be more than 5000 eel restaurants in Japan and each has it’s own hereditary handed preparation.
When you take luscious and thick grilled eel, you will be convinced to bear sticky summer in Japan.
To take eel during hot summer has long, long history in Japan. As evidence, you can find a famous singer, Otomo Yakamochi mentioned the eel as anti summer weariness food in Manyoushuu, 1200 years old anthology.
Meantime Japanese eel is listed up in endangered species. Japanese eel is considered to be born in Mariana trench in Pacific Ocean and wanders about Philippine, Taiwan, China and Japan. Then it swims back to Mariana trench to give birth.
Japan have to be the leader of these countries to prevent reckless hunting, otherwise we can not maintain the long historic food culture and in consequence we will not be able to keep enough stamina to bear hot and sticky Japanese summer.
(www.nalx.co.jp)
eel to be grilled by charcoal fire
