During Obon, families make offerings of food and drinks for ancestors to "come back home" to enjoy with them. However, there are two foods that are set out that play a more important role than being an offering, the cucumber and the eggplant.
A staple of Obon, the cucumber horse and eggplant cow are shoryoma, or spiritual conveyances, representing vessels or spirit animals for ancestors to use to come back home and then back to their world.
The cucumber is the slim, fast horse, to bring the ancestors home the fastest. The eggplant serves as the slower, fatter cow, allowing ancestors to leisurely return to their world with all of the