Nagoya Ritual · Eel Rice, Three Ways
Hitsumabushi
Photo: Kanesue / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
The dish exists because of broken dishware — a Nagoya restaurant's delivery bowls kept shattering on the way back from customers, so the owner invented an unbreakable wooden rice tub to hold the eel instead, and that tub became the whole format of the dish.
Grilled eel sliced over rice is served in a large wooden tub meant to be divided into portions: eaten plain first for the grilled aroma, then with condiments like scallion, wasabi and nori, then with hot dashi poured over rice for an ochazuke finish.
Why it's made this way: It originated at Atsuta Horaiken, a restaurant by Nagoya's Atsuta Shrine founded in 1873, and became widespread once farm-raised eel made the dish affordable enough for everyday restaurants in the 1950s.
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