Sorry, a week late. July 30 this year was unagi day. Wait, I thought you said cow day? Well, doyo, despite the day being a Saturday, actually is the 18 day period before the changing of the season. The days are assigned signs of the Zodiac, thus the ushi/ox/cow day. The ushi no hi is supposed to be the hottest day of the year. It may not actually be, but it’s close enough. Oh, the zodiac only has 12 signs, so yes, there actually can be two ushi no hi’s.
So where did unagi come in? The story goes is that it was actually a clever marketing ploy going way back to the Edo days. An unagi restaurant shop’s sales were lagging and the owner recruited an inventor dude who came up with the idea to promote the idea, eat “U”nagi on “U”shi no hi! It’s highly nutritious and will give you the strength to power through the hot day. Makes as much, if not more, sense than KFC Christmas chicken. And thus to this day you’ll see banners and such promoting unagi consumption on this day of the year.
And so you see here the dinner I had that night. Unfortunately it’s China unagi. I couldn’t even find Taiwan unagi. And I couldn’t stomach almost $30 for the piece of Japan unagi. Does it cost that much in Japan too?
Anyway, I don’t know if I feel any more invigorated on this hot humid day, but it’s one of my favorites anyway and yummy!
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