National Tempura Day - January 7th

January 7th is Tempura Day! Tempura is usually known as a Japanese dish of deep fried vegetables in a crispy batter. However, it was brought to Japan by Portuguese missionaries, who ate this on Catholic holy days and during Lent when they ate fish or vegetables.

My first taste of tempura was in a Japanese restaurant in Chicago, when we were still newlyweds. For a small-town girl like me, it felt pretty exotic. (Somehow Chinese food never felt as exotic to me, perhaps because I was familiar with it, having eaten in Chinese restaurants as a teenager growing up.)

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