Unagi (うなぎ) is the
Japaneseis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family. There are a number of proposed relationships with other languages, but none have gained general acceptance...
word for freshwater
eelTrue eels are an order of fish, which consists of four suborders, 19 families, 110 genera and approximately 600 species. Most eels are predators...
s, especially the
Japanese eelThe Japanese eel, Anguilla japonica, is a species of eel found in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, the East China Sea and the northern Philippines. Like the all the eels of its family, it is catadromous, meaning it lives parts of its life in both freshwater and saltwater. The specific spawning grounds have...
,
Anguilla japonica. Saltwater
eelTrue eels are an order of fish, which consists of four suborders, 19 families, 110 genera and approximately 600 species. Most eels are predators...
s are known as
anagois the Japanese word for salt-water eels, which are a seafood dish in Japan. Anago are often simmered or deep-fried , compared to unagi which are usually barbecued with a sauce . Anago is also slightly less rich and oily than unagi....
in Japanese. Unagi are a common ingredient in Japanese cooking. Unagi is served as part of
unadonAn Unadon is a popular donburi dish made with unagi kabayaki, grilled eel coated with a sweet sauce....
(sometimes spelled
unagidon, especially in menus in Japanese restaurants in Western countries), a
donburiDonburi is a Japanese "rice bowl dish" consisting of fish, meat, vegetables or other ingredients simmered together and served over rice. Donburi meals are served in oversized rice bowls also called donburi...
dish with sliced eel served on a bed of rice.
Unagi (うなぎ) is the
Japaneseis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family. There are a number of proposed relationships with other languages, but none have gained general acceptance...
word for freshwater
eelTrue eels are an order of fish, which consists of four suborders, 19 families, 110 genera and approximately 600 species. Most eels are predators...
s, especially the
Japanese eelThe Japanese eel, Anguilla japonica, is a species of eel found in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, the East China Sea and the northern Philippines. Like the all the eels of its family, it is catadromous, meaning it lives parts of its life in both freshwater and saltwater. The specific spawning grounds have...
,
Anguilla japonica. Saltwater
eelTrue eels are an order of fish, which consists of four suborders, 19 families, 110 genera and approximately 600 species. Most eels are predators...
s are known as
anagois the Japanese word for salt-water eels, which are a seafood dish in Japan. Anago are often simmered or deep-fried , compared to unagi which are usually barbecued with a sauce . Anago is also slightly less rich and oily than unagi....
in Japanese. Unagi are a common ingredient in Japanese cooking. Unagi is served as part of
unadonAn Unadon is a popular donburi dish made with unagi kabayaki, grilled eel coated with a sweet sauce....
(sometimes spelled
unagidon, especially in menus in Japanese restaurants in Western countries), a
donburiDonburi is a Japanese "rice bowl dish" consisting of fish, meat, vegetables or other ingredients simmered together and served over rice. Donburi meals are served in oversized rice bowls also called donburi...
dish with sliced eel served on a bed of rice. A kind of sweet biscuit called
unagi pie made with powdered unagi also exists. Unagi is high in
proteinProteins are organic compounds made of amino acids arranged in a linear chain and folded into a globular form. The amino acids in a polymer chain are joined together by the peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of adjacent amino acid residues...
,
vitamin AVitamin A is linked to a family of similarly shaped molecules, the retinoids, which complete the remainder of the vitamin sequence. Its important part is the retinyl group, which can be found in several forms. In foods of animal origin, the major form of vitamin A is an ester, primarily retinyl...
,
calciumCalcium is the chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. It has an atomic mass of 40.078 amu. Calcium is a soft grey alkaline earth metal, and is the fifth most abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust...
,
cholesterolCholesterol is a lipidic, waxy steroid found in the cell membranes and transported in the blood plasma of all animals. It is an essential component of mammalian cell membranes, where it is required to establish proper membrane permeability and fluidity...
and
saturated fatSaturated fat is fat that consists of triglycerides containing only saturated fatty acid radicals. There are several kinds of naturally occurring saturated fatty acids, which differ by the number of carbon atoms, ranging from 3 carbons to 36...
.
Specialist unagi restaurants are common in Japan, and commonly have signs showing the word
unagi with
hiraganais a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...
う (transliterated
u), which is the first letter of the word
unagi.
Lake Hamanain Shizuoka Prefecture is Japan's tenth largest lake . It spans the boundaries of the cities of Hamamatsu and Kosai and the town of Arai.-Data:...
in
Hamamatsu cityis a city located in western Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. On July 1, 2005, the city merged with 11 surrounding cities and towns. It became a city designated by government ordinance on April 1, 2007.- History :...
,
Shizuoka prefectureis a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region on Honshū island. The capital is the city of Shizuoka.- History :Shizuoka prefecture was previously divided into Tōtōmi Province, Suruga Province and Izu Province, and it was the home of the first Tokugawa Shogun...
is famous throughout Japan as the home of the highest quality unagi; as a result, the lake is surrounded by many small restaurants specializing in various unagi dishes. Unagi is often eaten during the hot summers in Japan. There is even a special day for eating unagi, the midsummer day of the
OxThe Ox is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. The Year of the Ox is denoted by the earthly branch character 丑...
(doyo no ushi no hi).
Sustainability
Seafood WatchSeafood Watch is one of the best known sustainable seafood advisory lists, and has influenced similar programs around the world. It is a program designed to raise consumer awareness about the importance of buying seafood from sustainable sources...
, one of the most well known
sustainable seafood advisory listSustainable seafood advisory lists and certification are programs aimed at increasing consumer awareness of the environmental impact and sustainability of their seafood purchasing choices....
s, recommends that consumers avoid eating unagi due to significant pressures on worldwide freshwater eel populations. All three eel species used as unagi have seen their population sizes greatly reduced in the past half century. Catches of the
European EelThe European eel, Anguilla anguilla, is a species of eel, a snake-like, facultatively catadromous fish. They can reach in exceptional cases a length of 1½ m, but is normally much smaller, about 60–80 cm, and rarely more than 1 m....
, for example, have declined about 80% since the 1960s. Although about 90% of freshwater eel consumed in the U.S. are
farm-raisedFish farming is the principal form of aquaculture, while other methods may fall under mariculture. Fish farming involves raising fish commercially in tanks or enclosures, usually for food. A facility that releases juvenile fish into the wild for recreational fishing or to supplement a species'...
, they are not
bred in captivityCaptive breedingis the process of breeding animals in human controlled environments with restricted settings, such as wildlife preserves, zoos and other conservation facilities; sometimes the process is construed to include release of individual organisms to the wild, when there is sufficient...
. Instead, young eels are collected from the wild and then raised in various enclosures. In addition to wild eel populations being reduced by this process, eels are often farmed in open net pens which allow parasites, waste products, and diseases to flow directly back into wild eel habitat, further threatening wild populations. Freshwater eels are
carnivoreA carnivore , meaning 'meat eater' , is an animal that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of vertebrate and/or invertebrate animal tissue, whether through predation or scavenging...
s and as such are fed other wild-caught fish, adding an additional element of unsustainability to current eel farming practices.