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August 16, 2025
 

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Makiko Itoh

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Makiko Itoh
Makiko Itoh writes the Japanese Kitchen column, and is the author of the bestselling "The Just Bento Cookbook" and its sequel, "The Just Bento Cookbook 2." A Tokyo native, she runs two Japanese cooking blogs, JustHungry.com and JustBento.com.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 25, 2012
Umeboshi: Perfect in any culinary pickle
Japanese cuisine has more than its share of acquired tastes, and umeboshi are near the top of the list. Intensely sour and salty, these traditional tsukemono (pickles) are prepared over several weeks, starting in June when the fruits of the ume tree are ripe, and finishing up in July under the hot midsummer...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 27, 2012
What to eat when you can't stand the heat
As the weather gets warmer, foods that are served cold and require little to no cooking become more appealing. In Japan the choice of such dishes goes way beyond a plain green salad. One of these is sashimi, a food that defines Japanese cuisine. While it's eaten year round along with its first cousin...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 23, 2012
Cherry blossom captures the flavor of spring
The Japanese love affair with the cherry tree and its pink, fragile sakura blossoms is world renowned. Every spring, the nation eagerly awaits for the first pink buds to appear on bare branches. The sakura zensen, or cherry-blossom opening front tracked by Japan's meteorological agency, shows where sakura...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 24, 2012
Kōji — Japan's vital hidden ingredient
The development of Japanese cuisine owes much to the humble kōji or kōji-kin. A type of fungus or mold, it is used in all kinds of foods and beverages. It's as important in Japan as the fungi, bacteria and yeast that give character to cheese, yogurt, wine, beer and bread are in the West. The difference...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Dec 30, 2011
Rice takes prized, symbolic yearend form
Shōgatsu (New Year's) is the most important holiday on the Japanese calendar, and the dishes associated with it are laden with symbolic meaning. While the colorful foods of osechi, packed attractively in jūbako (stacking bento boxes), are the flamboyant attention-catchers of the New Year's feast, the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Nov 25, 2011
Sweet dreams of a childhood winter warmer
The mournful chant of the ishi-yakiimo-ya or stone-roasted sweet-potato seller advertising his wares is a cherished part of the late fall and winter landscape in Japan. The sing-song chant is often accompanied by the thin, penetrating tone of a whistle, which seems to echo the sound of the wind. Braving...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Oct 28, 2011
Pig in Japan: the nation's most popular meat
The most popular type of meat by far in Japan is pork. Nearly as much pork is consumed as chicken and beef combined. It is particularly popular in Okinawa, Kyushu, and the Kanto area. My mother was born in Saitama Prefecture in the 1940s, and she doesn't remember eating beef except as a very special...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 23, 2011
Forage your way into mushroom season
Edible mushrooms are a feature of the fall season in temperate climates worldwide, and Japan is no exception. The humid climate lends itself to the growth of all kinds of fungi, so it's easy to assume that mushrooms (or kinoko in Japanese) of all kinds have been included in the daily meals of the Japanese...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Aug 26, 2011
Curry — it's more 'Japanese' than you think
To many people in Japan, summertime is synonymous with hot and spicy food. Spices are believed to cool you down by making you perspire, as well as stimulating an appetite dulled by the sweltering weather. The quintessential spicy dish in Japan is curry, which is so popular that it's regarded, along with...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jul 22, 2011
The nostalgic and sweet life of Kyoto
The world of wagashi, traditional Japanese confectionery, can be a little difficult to decipher. Not a few people are rather underwhelmed by their first taste of a typical wagashi such as daifuku, a sticky rice dumpling filled with an, sweet adzuki bean paste. Even if you can get over the strangeness...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jul 22, 2011
Serving green tea in your own home
It's impossible to write out a recipe for wagashi in such a limited space, and just as impossible to acquire the skills you need to make them! So here is a recipe for making a proper glass of iced matcha tea, the perfect summertime accompaniment for refined jōgashi.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jun 24, 2011
Keep a low-power kitchen this summer
Now that we are entering the hottest part of the Japanese summer, it's time to get really serious about saving electricity — in the kitchen as much as anywhere.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 27, 2011
Farming without chemicals — or radiation
Yasunori Toyoguchi peers under the netting protecting a small rice paddy. "See," he says, pointing to some grassy shoots, "here's this year's crop, just starting to emerge." He scoops up a little of the water trickling over the mud with one hand. "See how clear and clean this is?" he asks. "The frogs...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 22, 2011
The unmistakable taste of a new season
In these days of year-round growing of vegetables in temperature-controlled conditions and air shipments of fresh produce from around the world, it's all too easy to forget the seasons. But in Japan, seasonality is still highly treasured, and there's no time like the spring to enjoy certain vegetables...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Apr 7, 2011
The best kindergarten lessons are at lunch time
Despite the devastation of the earthquake and tsunami in the northeastern part of Honshu, in most of Japan, life has to go on as usual.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 24, 2011
Japan's unlikely hero: the humble rice ball
One of the quiet heroes to emerge in this time of grave crisis in Japan is the humble little white ball of rice called onigiri or omusubi.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 25, 2011
Delicious dishes that are fit for a princess
Makiko Itoh SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES March 3 is Hina Matsuri, also known as Girls' Festival or Momo no Sekku (Peach Day). This day was a traditional seasonal and religious event on the lunar calendar, during the period when peach blossoms were in bloom — around early April on the Gregorian calendar....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 28, 2011
With sake rice, nothing goes to waste
Although sake is often described as "rice wine" to Westerners, sake is actually a fermented-grain beverage akin to beer, and unlike wine made from grapes it does not age well. So the winter months, when shinshu (freshly made new sake) is available, are the best time to enjoy this quintessentially Japanese...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Dec 24, 2010
Why not spend New Year's Eve totally soba?
The yearend period, called shiwasu, is a really hectic time in Japan. Think of it as spring cleaning, Thanksgiving and the usual end-of-year activities all rolled into one.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Nov 26, 2010
Reel in the catch of the season
The long, record-breaking hot summer hasn't been good for sanma, or Pacific saury. Catches of this normally inexpensive fixture of the fall dinner table in Japanese homes have been so poor that its prices have skyrocketed — if you can find any to buy at all. Another popular fish that is in peak season...
The indelible memory of being a part of Unit 731
Hideo Shimizu, 95, says he cannot forget seeing the prisoners' bloody wills scribbled on the walls of prison cells at Unit 731 in 1945.
Japanese star convicted of indecent assault in Hong Kong
J-pop idol Kenshin Kamimura leaves the West Kowloon Law Courts on bail in Hong Kong on Wednesday, after he was found guilty of indecent assault of a woman who worked as his interpreter at a restaurant in Mong Kok district in March this year.
Tens of thousands left stranded at Osaka Expo by train service interruption
Visitors rest inside the Osaka Expo venue early Thursday morning
Welcoming foreign residents benefits Japan, three quarters of economists say
The streets of Tokyo's Ginza district in April. The number of foreign residents in Japan hit a record high at 3.76 million as of the end of last year, comprising just over 3% of the population.
Hiker missing in Hokkaido after bear attack found dead
The Rausu mountain range at Hokkaido's Shiretoko National Park. A man in his 20s who went missing after being attacked by a bear while hiking on Mount Rausu has been found dead.
The indelible memory of being a part of Unit 731
Hideo Shimizu, 95, says he cannot forget seeing the prisoners' bloody wills scribbled on the walls of prison cells at Unit 731 in 1945.
Will Ishiba's critics be able to garner enough support for a leadership race?
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's political survival likely hinges on whether a leadership race will take place within the Liberal Democratic Party following its decision to have its election committee canvass the opinions of party members and prefectural chapters on the subject.
Hidden rosters and the legacy of Japan’s germ warfare
Katsutoshi Takegami, 77, in his storehouse attic where he discovered his father's Unit 1644 documents
Osaka Expo highlights the challenge of holding events in Japan's scorching summer
People huddle near a large fan blowing icy-cold mist at the Osaka Expo on July 12. Amid Japan's relentless summer heat, organizes have put myriad measures in place in order to keep guests safe.
At Himawari Shokudo 2, Italian food with a Japanese soul
At Himawari Shokudo 2, chef Hozumi Tanaka serves Italian-inspired fare with a focus on Toyama produce, such as this appetizer of lightly blanched "hotaru ika" (firefly squid) served atop mixed wild plants and a crepe prepared from "yamato-imo" yam.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers
By Tomoko Otake

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