Yanagawa Canals

This guide to the Yanagawa Canals near Fukuoka follows seiro mushi, the twice-steamed eel dish nearly every restaurant along the canal claims to make the one true way, each guarding its sauce recipe as a family secret. It traces the dish back to the Edo period and its 2021 listing as an official hundred-year food. You will hear how the canals themselves nearly disappeared by the 1960s as city pipes made them feel obsolete, and about the local official who held over a hundred meetings urging neighbors to save them.