Basashi

Thin slices of raw horse meat eaten with sliced onion, grated ginger and garlic, and a sweet soy sauce. Because the cut surface is a clean shade of pink, it's also called 'sakura meat,' and the flavor differs by cut, from the marbled loin to the leaner leg meat. Low in fat, high in protein, and rich in iron and calcium, it's said to have long been valued as a food for building strength.

A block of horse meat is kept chilled until an order comes in, then sliced thin to order. It's served with condiments like sliced onion, grated ginger, grated garlic and chopped scallion, and eaten dipped in a sweet soy sauce. Another way to eat it is finely minced and mixed with fermented soybeans and a quail egg. The marbled cuts have fat with a low melting point that turns liquid quickly, so they're best eaten soon after slicing.

The custom of eating horse meat is said to trace back to a time when, food having run out on the Korean peninsula, people turned to eating army horses, a practice said to have spread to Kumamoto and the Aso region after the Meiji era. The Aso region, a center for raising army horses, is said to have taken up eating horse meat again amid postwar food shortages, which is thought to be how eating it raw and thinly sliced became the standard. Horses run hotter than cattle or pigs, which makes it harder for food-poisoning bacteria to take hold, a trait also said to underpin the custom of eating it raw.