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Location: Sakai, Osaka, Japan

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

The Taxonomy of OKONOMI-YAKI

OKONOMI-YAKI in a wide sense can be divided into MAZE-YAKI and BETA-YAKI. Today, when you order a sheet of OKONOMI-YAKI, you are most likely served with MAZE-YAKI. MAZE means to mix. We mix flour, water, shreded cabage, and others before we bake MAZE-YAKI, or OKONOMI-YAKI in a narrow sense. BETA means being flat. We mix only flour and water, and bake a crepe-like sheet, which will be topped with shreded cabage and others. Some paste with flour and water is added later to fix the toppings. BETA-YAKI is sometimes called YOSHOKU-YAKI. To make the situation more complicated, in Kishiwada OKONOMI-YAKI and YOSHOKU-YAKI, or YOSHOKU in short, used not to be distinguished. MAZE-YAKI has its local versions such as HIROSHIMA-YAKI, as TAKO-YAKI has its local version, AKASHI-YAKI. OKONOMI-YAKI and TAKO-YAKI have their higher category, KONA-MON. KONA means flour. MON means a thing or things, or foods here.

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