is a small round

dumpling Dumpling is a broad class of dishes that consist of pieces of dough (made from a variety of starch sources), oftentimes wrapped around a filling. The dough can be based on bread, flour, buckwheat or potatoes, and may be filled with meat, ...

from the city of Akashi in

Hyōgo Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and has a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to the southeast, an ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

. The dumpling is made of an egg-rich batter and

octopus An octopus ( : octopuses or octopodes, see below for variants) is a soft-bodied, eight- limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, ...

dipped into '' dashi'' (a thin fish broth) before eating. Modern style akashiyaki first started selling in the Taishō period by a yatai shopper Seitarō Mukai. Although ''

takoyaki is a ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour-based batter and cooked in a special molded pan. It is typically filled with minced or diced octopus (''tako''), tempura scraps (''tenkasu''), pickled ginger (''beni shoga''), and green o ...

'', another Japanese dumpling, is more popular in Japan, it is based on akashiyaki. Both are made with a takoyaki pan, a type of frying pan or cooktop with many hemispherical molds. Compared to takoyaki, akashiyaki has a softer, more eggy texture. Akashiyaki is shown in the

cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and ...

visual novel A , often abbreviated as VN, is a form of digital semi-interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with and used in the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with sta ...

video game '' Snatcher''. In the English release, however, it was changed to "Neo Kobe Pizza", which people have actually gone to the effort of recreating.

History

Akashiyaki used to be known as tamagoyaki (grilled egg) for a long time locally. However, around 1988, a city official renamed tamagoyaki to akashiyaki for purpose of promoting Akashi. The origin of the name is the decoration named Akashidama. It is one kind of artificial coral made by hardening egg whites with saltpeter, and it was used as decoration for kanzashi. From the end of the Edo period to the Taisho period, the production of Akashidama was thriving as a local industry in Akashi. It is said that people started making akashiyaki because there was a large amount of leftover egg yolk and wheat flour from the production sequence of Akashidama. In addition, Akashi city abounded with octopuses. Thus people started mixing those ingredients together and invented new cuisine – akashiyaki.

Seasons and Places to Eat

Regardless of the season, akashiyaki is eaten as lunch and snack both at restaurants and at home. As of 2021, there are 70 akashiyaki places in Akashi city.

The Comparison with Takoyaki

References

Dumplings Japanese cuisine Culture in Hyōgo Prefecture Japanese egg dishes {{japan-cuisine-stub

History

Seasons and Places to Eat

The Comparison with Takoyaki

See also

References