Tokyo Bay was the area whose early seventeenth-century food-cart culture helped shape modern tempura.
During the Edo period, tempura changed around the Tokyo Bay area as yatai, or food carts, became popular. Vendors could make use of the bay’s abundant fresh seafood and serve hot fried food quickly to customers. This helped move tempura away from an earlier, heavier preparation toward the lighter style associated with Tokyo, also called Edo-style tempura.
The modern batter used flour, egg, and water, with minimal mixing and often cold water. That technique limited gluten development and produced the thin, crisp coating now regarded as characteristic of tempura. The food was commonly eaten immediately, often with a dipping sauce containing grated daikon.
Tempura became one of Edo’s celebrated street foods alongside soba and sushi. It was especially suited to outdoor stalls because deep-frying was considered a fire hazard inside Japan’s wooden, paper-built buildings. Suruga, Ise, and Osaka bays are important Japanese coastal areas, but they are not the bay identified in this historical account.