needless to say, it has now become my comedy routine when i meet new japanese people

Me? I’m happy as fish with the system! Yummmmm…

My japanese girlfriend is convinced European mayonnaise is disgusting. Many a saturday have we spent scoping out the Asian shops of Holland looking for that elusive flask of QP brand japanese mayo.

“There is no way I’m putting that French stuff on okonomiyaki,” she says, “the French have no idea how to make proper mayonnaise!”

that もんじ焼き (monji-yaki) name has changed to もんじゃ焼き (monja-yaki) in today’s parlance. and i have to say, i prefer monja to okonomiyaki.

the truth is i love both, but they smother okonomiyaki in mayonnaise, while monja is generally mayonnaise-free!

japanesepancakeworldは私のMIXIの日記に書くつもりです。
どもありがとう、君は私に新しいTOPICがあげる。
おこのみやきはやばい！

ちなまに：
やばい is an interesting word. For young people it’s cool, good, great but what is young? In NYC I hang out across the road at an Izakaya, the 30 year old staff use やばい as an expression for danger, not good etc., so who is young and the context is indeed all important.

Also need to go and check the beginners lesson where yabai is introduced.

If you’re in New York this Izakaya Kyushuu style food is the best downtown. Rock Meisha’s address you can find by clicking on my name: henjin

okay it’s also my site so self interest has no part to play in the link

Seriously though Rock Meisha 六明社: is amazing for anyone learning Japanese, if you sit at the bar it’s like being in Japan. So it’s good for listening to everyday chit chat Japanese style. Unlike some Japanese bars on the East Side they will happily listen to beginner Japanese and reply in Japanese.

In the late 40’s, Japan was still recovering from the aftermath of World War II. Food was scarce and people turned to Negi-yaki, a snack, to fill their empty stomachs. Particularly in Hiroshima, destroyed by the atomic bomb, life was harsh. Food distributed via rations was never enough to save the people from hunger. Kitchen appliances had been long confiscated by the government for manufacturing weapons. Hiroshima citizens picked up metallic sheets from the ruins and baked these wafer-thin pancakes to survive. In an effort to ease their hunger, people stuffed their pancakes with as much chopped cabbage as their make-shift-back-yard-farm permitted. And thus was born the first “Hiroshima-yaki.”

In other areas, people added available or preferred ingredients. Hence the Japanese name for the pancakes, “Okonomi-yaki,” or ‘cook as you like’. Its’ popularity soared when a Japanese Pancake restaurant in Osaka introduced the use of mayonnaise as an additional topping. Since then, mayonnaise became an integral part of Osaka-style Japanese Pancake.

The Creator
The earliest form of Japanese Pancake dates back to the 16th century. A pancake called “Funo-yaki” was created by Sennorikyuu, the founder of the Japanese tea ceremony. He mixed flour with water and sake and char-grilled the flattened dough. Sweet miso was then spread on this savory pancake before being rolled and cut into a bite-size portion. At the height of the pancake’s popularity, there were even Funo-yaki specialty shops. However, the pancake tradition completely disappeared towards the end of Edo-period (1603 - 1868).

Some years later in Meiji-era (1868 - 1911) candy stores started selling so-called “Monji-yaki” or “letter cooking”. Children learned Japanese alphabets by drawing them on a teppan with watery pancake dough. At one point, people started selling Monji-yaki in mobile food-stalls. The watery dough became thicker to adapt to the mobile environment. This thicker type of dough is still used today.