After the
arrival of Buddhism in Japan in the 6th century, consumption of meat became rare in Japanese culture (especially those of four-footed animals such as
cattle or
pigs) and in many cases frowned upon, both for religious and practical reasons. It was only after the
Meiji Restoration in 1868 and the subsequent westernization of the country that meat began to be widely eaten.
Gyūdon is considered to be derived from
gyūnabe (牛鍋), a beef
hot pot originating in the
Kantō region of eastern Japan.
Gyūnabe originally consisted of cuts of beef simmered with
Welsh onions and
miso (as the beef available in Japan at the time were usually of poor quality, the meat was cooked this way to tenderize it and neutralize its foul smell), but by the late 1800s, a variation that used a special
stock called
warishita (割下) – a combination of a sweetener such as sugar or
mirin and
soy sauce – instead of miso and featuring additional ingredients such as
shirataki (
konjac cut into noodle-like strips) and
tofu began to appear. This version of
gyūnabe (known today as
sukiyaki – originally the name of a similar yet distinct dish from the
Kansai region) eventually came to be served with rice in a deep bowl (
donburi), becoming
gyūmeshi or
gyūdon. '', from a
Sukiya restaurant By the 1890s,
gyūmeshi had already become popular in Tokyo, but was yet unknown in other places such as
Kyoto or
Osaka. In 1899, Eikichi Matsuda opened the first
Yoshinoya restaurant, at the fish market in Tokyo's
Nihonbashi district.
Gyūdon, under the moniker
kamechabu, were also being sold in food stands (
yatai) in the streets of
Ueno and
Asakusa. It was around this time that
gyūdon evolved further into its present form: a bowl of rice topped with thin slices of beef with
onions (
tamanegi). Although some establishments still offer
gyūdon with a
sukiyaki-like topping (i.e. containing ingredients such as
shirataki or tofu), the dish as served in most major food chains nowadays simply consist of rice, beef and onions. == As fast food ==