is a Japanese

Japanese cuisine

Japanese cuisine has developed over the centuries as a result of many political and social changes throughout Japan. The cuisine eventually changed with the advent of the Medieval age which ushered in a shedding of elitism with the age of shogun rule...

 stew

Stew

A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables , meat, especially tougher meats suitable for slow-cooking, such as beef. Poultry, sausages, and seafood are also used...

 (a type of nabemono

Nabemono

Nabemono or simply called nabe, is a term referring to all varieties of Japanese steamboat dishes, also known as one pot dishes....

 or one-pot dish) commonly eaten in vast quantity by sumo

Sumo

is a competitive full-contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally...

 wrestlers as part of a weight-gain diet. It contains a dashi

Dashi

Dashi is a class of soup and cooking stock, considered fundamental to Japanese cooking. In 1980, Shizuo Tsuji wrote: "Many substitutes for dashi are possible, but without dashi, dishes are merely à la japonaise and lack the authentic flavor." Dashi forms the base for miso soup, clear broth, noodle...

or chicken broth soup base with sake or mirin

Mirin

is an essential condiment used in Japanese cuisine, consisting of 40%–50% sugar. It is a kind of rice wine similar to sake, but with a lower alcohol content—14% instead of 20%. There are three general types. The first is hon mirin , which contains alcohol. The second is shio mirin, which contains...

to add flavor. The bulk of chankonabe is made up of large quantities of protein

Protein

Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...

 sources (usually chicken (quartered, skin left on), fish (fried and made into balls), tofu

Tofu

is a food made by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into soft white blocks. It is part of East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and others. There are many different varieties of tofu, including fresh tofu and tofu...

 (or sometimes beef) and vegetables (daikon

Daikon

Daikon , Raphanus sativus var. longipinnatus, also called White Radish, Japanese radish, Oriental radish, Chinese radish, lo bok and Mooli , is a mild flavoured, very large, white East Asian radish...

, bok choy, etc). While considered a reasonably healthy dish in its own right, chankonabe is very protein-rich and usually served in massive quantities, with beer and rice to increase the caloric intake. Leftover chankonabe broth can also later be used as broth for somen

Somen

are very thin, white Japanese noodles made of wheat flour. The noodles are usually served cold and are less than 1.3 mm in diameter. The distinction between sōmen and the next thicker wheat noodles hiyamugi and even thicker Japanese wheat noodles udon is mostly the size of the noodle...

or udon

Udon

is a type of thick wheat-flour noodle of Japanese cuisine.Udon is usually served hot as noodle soup in its simplest form as kake udon, in a mildly flavoured broth called kakejiru which is made of dashi, soy sauce , and mirin. It is usually topped with thinly chopped scallions...

noodles.

It is not made according to a fixed recipe and often contains whatever is available to the cook. It is traditionally served according to seniority, with the senior rikishi and any guests of the heya

Heya

In sumo wrestling, a heya , usually translated into English as stable, is an organization of sumo wrestlers where they train and live. All wrestlers in professional sumo must belong to one. There are currently 49 heya , all but four of which belong to one of five ichimon...

receiving first choice, with the junior wrestlers getting whatever is left. It is also a popular restaurant food, often served in restaurants operated by retired sumo wrestlers who specialize in the dish; the first of these, Kawasaki Chanko, was started in 1937 in the Ryōgoku

Ryogoku

is a neighborhood in Sumida, Tokyo. It is surrounded by various neighborhoods in Sumida, Chūō, and Taitō wards: Yokoami, Midori, Chitose, Higashi Nihonbashi, and Yanagibashi....

 district of Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, home to many prominent sumo stables.

Chankonabe served during sumo tournaments is made exclusively with chicken, the idea being that a rikishi should always be on two legs like a chicken, not all fours like a cow or off one's legs entirely like a fish http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/sumoeastandwest/chanko.html (i.e., in a position of one who has just lost a match).

See also

• Glossary of sumo terms
  Glossary of sumo terms
  The following words are terms used in sumo wrestling in Japan. azukari : Hold. A kind of draw. After a mono-ii, the gyōji or the shimpan "holds" the result if it was too close to call...
  
  
• Nabemono
  Nabemono
  Nabemono or simply called nabe, is a term referring to all varieties of Japanese steamboat dishes, also known as one pot dishes....