The Japanese really like tamago-yaki. It is made by beating chicken eggs, then mixing in a stock that has sugar, soy sauce, salt, and maybe some other seasonings. The mixture is fried and turned over several times while cooking.

Any Japanese person 40 years old or more probably remembers the childhood expression common in the 1960s, "Kyojin, Taiho, tamago-yaki." This was a list of three things kids were sure to like: the Giants, a professional baseball team that kept on winning; Taiho, a sumo grand champion (yokozuna) and sports hero; and omelet, the perfect example of what children liked to eat. Today, people tend to have their own food preferences, but tamago-yaki is still a favorite for everyone, regardless of age. It is very easy to make at home, but oddly enough, no one knows when tamago-yaki was first made.

Chicken eggs were first eaten in Japan in the Edo period (1603-1867). Near the end of the 18th century, a comprehensive book called Manpo Ryori Himitsu-bako (A Treasury of Secret Recipes) was published. The book, also known as Tamago Hyakuchin (A Hundred Unusual Egg Recipes), did not contain any recipe for the Japanese-style omelet we eat today. Another book, Ryori Kanben-shu (A Compendium for Simple Cuisine, published 1806), contained a recipe for a dish that can be considered the ancestor of today's tamago-yaki, though it is a little different. It calls for pieces of fish, prawn or other seafood to be diced to the size of about 1 cm cubes, mixed in beaten eggs with chopped green onions, then fried.

Fukuda Hiroshi has researched the culinary traditions of old Edo (Tokyo during the Edo period), and says that the recipe for the tamago-yaki we eat today was probably first developed around the time the Shogunate fell, in the late 1860s. In the Meiji period, which began in 1868, take-out box lunches sold by restaurants always had pieces of tamago-yaki, boiled fish cake (kamaboko), and mashed sweet potato with sugar added (kinton). Chicken eggs were a luxury in those days, but gradually became part of the diet of working people.

For some reason, the tamago-yaki made in Kansai (Osaka region) does not contain the same seasonings used in Kanto (Tokyo region). Kansai cooks use only a seasoned stock and salt, so the omelet keeps its yellow-egg color. In Kanto they add soy sauce and sugar, so the color of the omelet is darker, and it is easier to give the surface a nice braised look. And of course the taste is different, too — people from Kansai who try Kanto-style tamago-yaki find the sweet taste surprising.

In Japan, the price of chicken eggs hardly rose at all for a couple of decades after World War II. Considered "inflation-proof," they became one of the cheapest foods one could buy.

We asked Yamasaki Mika, who studied cooking at a restaurant with a long tradition in old Tokyo-style cuisine, to make tamago-yaki in the traditional Kanto style. She says the key to giving the omelet a light texture is to keep the pan at the right temperature. The egg mixture contains a fair amount of sugar, which can make it burn easily, but you should keep the heat quite high and fry it quickly. If you use a round frying pan, cook the egg like you would an ordinary omelet, but tap the handle in such a way as to get the egg to roll into a nice shape. Happy cooking!