The Smell of Grilled Eel

Long ago, there once lived a stingy man. He liked grilled eel, but didn't want to pay for it. So every day he sat in front of an eel shop with a bowl of rice.

"Mmm...smells delicious." He would eat his plain rice while smelling the grilled eel. This made the shop owner angry.

"Don't steal my smell!" he shouted. "You have to pay for it!"

"Very well," said the stingy man. He took out some coins and shook them in his hand. Clink-clank

"I only smelled your grilled eel, so I'll pay you with the sound of these coins. Sounds fair, right?"

This is an old folk tale from Japan that I thought was interesting. The man, while stingy, was also clever and used his wit to make his meals more enjoyable while also avoiding getting in trouble. As a former college student I can relate to this story because I used to be really poor and had to eat A LOT of top-ramen so I could pay tuition and rent. So much that my stomach developed an terrible reaction to even the smell and sight of it. To make it better, something as simple as adding some soy sauce and occasionally changing the taste up slightly made a whole lot of difference.

With a little cleverness and imagination (and no other choice), you can make the best out of what you have with the simplest of changes, like adding the smell of grilled eel to make your plain rice a little tastier.

                                                                                                                     Peace

Also known as "unagi" in Japanese, this dish is DELICIOUS, but also expensive. I don't blame the stingy man.