If you have been to Japan, you may have noticed a BBQ restaurant with a sign saying ホルモン焼き. ホルモン? The English word “hormone” is transliterated as ホルモン but ホルモン焼き? Doesn’t make sense, does it?
No, this ホルモン does not have much to do with “hormone” although not totally unrelated. ホルモン comes from a word in the Osaka dialect ほる(放る)+ もん(もの)(= something that gets thrown away) thus it refers to “offal.”
I’m not a fan of those but it is very popular in Japan especially among young people. They are much cheaper than normal BBQ meat and many people say they are tastier.
If you are brave, try it one day in Japan!
BTW, the photo I used today is not really ホルモンやき.
Osaka has a lot of odd foods. I see this one in korean joints a lot. Maybe they eat a lot of offal? Neat explanation!