During the postwar period, when everyone was suffering from starvation and looking for anything they could eat, a certain food item became highly popular. That food item was "Issen-yoshoku" (one-coin Western food) which was sold at children's sweet store and which was highly popular among the children. In the prewar period, the adults used not to prefer this "Issen-yoshoku", considering it as merely a snack for children. However, the adults were desperate now, and made arrangements for this Issen-yoshoku to make it into a dish which can be enjoyed by adults, too, and now it has become highly popular nationwide. That was how the history of Okonomiyaki had started in the postwar period.
The pioneers who opened okonomiyaki restaurants in the downtown area made some arrangement for the Issen-yoshoku, the snack popular among the children, by placing a tiny strip of pork onto it and then changing the name from "Issen-yoshoku" (the term Issen referred to one-coin of the minimum currency amount, but in fact an Issen-yoshoku had been priced much higher) to "Okonomiyaki", and that had changed the dish to something that can be enjoyed among the adults, too. Thus, okonomiyaki had ventured onto its journey in a totally new world, but still, during the late 1940s, it was considered as a light snack for relieving the hunger, and it used to be made at a corner of the street in tasteless shops or restaurants.
Once in the late 1950s, okonomiyaki developed from something that merely filled your appetite to a proper dish which can be fully enjoyed by the taste of the adults, and became highly popular among all age and social groups. The name "okonomiyaki" had been well considered; the term "okonomi" means "whatever you like", and it can be arranged in any way to make it suit each person. There is leek-okonomiyaki ("negi-yaki") where you can put as much leek as you like onto it, and then you can put expensive ingredients such as squids or shrimps into it - that is the good point and the superior point of an okonomiyaki, being able to arrange it in any way you like.
