All About the Famous Japanese Pancake.
Okonomiyaki is all about casual comfort food in Japan. While it’s regionally known in Osaka, it also has variations around the country. Learn about the okonomiyaki history and the different preparations in Japan.
Okonomiyaki History
Okonomiyaki is essentially a savory pancake featuring shredded cabbage, a yam and flour-based batter, pork, and seafood.
The origins and inspiration for today’s okonomiyaki date back to the Edo period in the 16th century when it was called funoyaki and served during Buddhist ceremonies. This sweet, crepe-like pancake consisted of a wheat dough rolled and toasted on a grilled and then topped with miso paste and sugar.
A few centuries later in the Meiji period, from 1868 to 1912, funoyaki became sukesoyaki in which the miso paste was replaced with a sweet bean paste.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the sweet pancake because known as yoshokuyaki which was topped with more sauces.
Then, in the late 1930s, a restaurant in Osaka officially named it okonomiyaki. Okonomi meaning “how you like” or “what you like” and yaki meaning cooked over direct heat.
Savory versions of okonomiyaki were created, around this time first with shallots and Worcestershire sauce. Nearby in Hiroshima, it was topped with onions, folded over, and served to children as a snack.
During World War II, food resources, like rice, were scarce, so locals improvised with what they had. Okonomiyaki is a prime example of locals exemplifying the word “okonomi” (what you like) as they used wheat and added eggs, pork, and cabbage for a complete meal in on hefty pancake.
Types of Regional Okonomiyaki
Osaka’s okonomiyaki is most known around the world. In this version, all the ingredients are mixed into a batter and grilled onto a flat griddle.
While Osaka is most known for okonomiyaki, Hiroshima actually has the most okonomiyaki restaurants in the country. The city even has an okonomi village called Okonomimura which hosts over 25 okonomiyaki restaurants on 4 floors.
Hiroshima-style consists of a crepe-like pancake grilled, and then other ingredients (which include more cabbage than Osaka’s style) layered on top to finish.
In the Kanto region, there’s a Tokyo-style of okonomiyaki called monjayaki. This variation first cooks the main ingredients on the grilled, then shapes them into a ring in order to add the liquid batter in the middle. The result is a runnier consistency with the completed dish eaten directly off the flat griddle with an okonomiyaki spatula.
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