Yakitori

Cutting up meat into small pieces, skewering them on a long thin stick and roasting the kebab over an open flame is a universal dish. All cultures discover it eventually, and incorporate it into their respective cuisines. Some later than others, and some in more ways than others, but everyone has their own version. Japanese cuisine has its own version, and has extended the use of the technique to more than just any available protein. In fact, it's almost a genre on its own.

Grilled foods on skewers are referred to as yakitori in Japan, literally "grilled chicken". All parts of the chicken are used, however - gizzard (shown left), liver, hearts, wings, breast, thigh, skin etc. The chicken pieces are threaded onto bamboo skewers and dipped in a mixture of soya sauce, mirin vinegar and honey prior to grilling. The skewers may also simply be salted. Once grilled to moist doneness, the skewers are served, plain, or with plain sansho pepper or shichimi pepper (sansho mixed with chili flakes and sesame). The genre's repertoire has expanded to include other meats as well - beef, pork, duck, seafood, occasionally married to vegetables, with different marinades.

In Japan, yakitori is eaten at specialist yakitori shops or stalls (known as yakitori-ya) which may have a capacity of less than 10. Red lanterns are traditional signs of yakitori-ya, usually wreathed in a cloud of smoke from the charcoal grill. Skewers are also served at izakaya, or the Japanese version of a pub. Once inside either a yakitori-ya, one draws up one's stool, orders several skewers (they usually come in orders of two), and a cold beer. Once replete with grilled chicken, the traditional way to finish the meal is with chazuke, a bowl of rice drenched in stock and tea, flavoured with fish or fruit. Meals at izakaya tend to be more focused on the alcohol, with the yakitori taking the role of stomach padding.

Yakitori dates from around 1700, where it was first developed as a technique for quickly cooking the meat of wild birds, which were relatively rare at the time. The meat was first taken off the skewers prior to serving, but this soon became confined to the nobility. Farmers and peasants found it much easier to eat the skewers on the move, while walking or working (the very definition of street food!). Nevertheless, the scarcity of wildfowl kept consumption limited to whatever the lucky farmer or noble could trap. In the 20th century however, the dish found its metier with the introduction of the chicken.

Yakitori encapsulates not only chicken skewers, but combinations of meat and vegetables which are extremely varied, yet unmistakably Japanese due to the ingredients, the marinade and spices, and the grilling style. The traditional Japanese respect for food and their insistence on using the freshest and most appropriate ingredients have created many different types of yakitori, making their style the most flexible among all the styles of grilled skewered meat that have arisen in cuisines around the world.