Unagi with teriyaki sauce

[Wilson Gray]

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 5:28 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is an Okane club in LA (Korea Town) and a sushi bar is opening in
> Seattle in October. But why would anyone name a rice bowl dish after
> "money"? Unless there is some transferred meaning, "okanedon" means
> "moneybowl". Your local chef is playing a joke on you, Wilson. Or else,
> you're playing a joke on the rest of us.
>

Korea Town now includes my former 'hood, from the days when I lived in
L.A. in the '50's-'70's.

Back in the day, I used to go with my sansei tomodachi, Hideo
Fujikawa, to the area usually called "Little Tokyo," but which he
always referred to only as "Japanese Town." We used to go to the
various eateries down there. According to the kanji on the menu and my
personal experience, the dish featured shrimp, for some reason
pronounced _okane_, in this case, otomodachi. (Gnanadesikan 2009:113
opines that Japanese has "the most-complex writing-system in modern
use.")

BTW, do you recall the condiment sold under the Japanese brand-name,
_Ajinomoto_? Many Americans prefer that it not be added to their food.
However, in the more traditional Japanese Town eateries, Ajinomono was
more likely to be on the table than salt and pepper were.

Hideo knew the meaning of his surname, "Wisteria River." but he had no
idea what "wisteria" was. As it happens, I  know what it is and was
able to point it out to him, when we serendipitously came across some
growing on a fence.
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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