Meats are often salted or marinated first.
A skewer is not always involved: a whole fish can be cooked and called a Yakimono dish.
Though grilling might be done over a fire, there won’t be a smoky taste.
Yakimono dishes are served hot straight away, often as a starter or as part of the course of starter dishes.
Cooking Tips
Bamboo skewers should be soaked in water first so that they don’t go up in flames and take your dinner with them.
Literature & Lore
More energetic food writers attribute the origin of Yakimono to soldiers impaling hunks of meat on their swords and sticking them into the fire. The same origin is also attributed to Sheesh Kebab, except in the instance of Sheesh Kebab the swords are said to be wielded by pony-mounted Mongols. Whether they stayed mounted on their ponies while cooking is not stated.
Language Notes
In Japanese, “yaki” means “grilled” or “fired”. “Yakimono”, which means “fired thing”, can also be applied to pottery.