🍱 Bokumeshi

Within Shizuoka Prefecture, there are two main production zones for farming eels: Lake Hamana and the Oi River basin, with Yoshida Town corresponding to the Oi River basin production zone. Eel farming began in Yoshida Town with the formation of eel ponds on unused rice paddies flooded out by the Oi River during the Taisho era, and utilized the basin's underground water. Yoshida Town's eels are well known for being fatty and soft. “Bokumeshi” is a mixed rice made by combining boiled eel and burdock root to cooked rice. The name is derived from a thick stake called a “bokkui.” At the time, eels that were too fat were unsellable, so the eel farmers began to eat them and it is said that the meal eventually came to be called “bokumeshi.” Since the latter half of the 1950s, eels have been farmed so much that they account for 40% of Japan's eel production（※）. Because eel could be bought locally and in large quantities, bokumeshi was a staple in many households, but in recent years the price of eel has increased and there are less opportunities to make it at home. Source: Yoshimachi Public Corporation website