I've been a fairly good imbiber of alcohol ever since my high school days or earlier. My father was almost a teetotaler but loved inviting people over to make merry. On such occasions he made sure that enough sake and beer flowed, and we young ones weren't really excluded. My mother -- perhaps because she was the quintessential Japanese mother -- seldom said no to me.
Still, I wasn't familiar with guinomi, the name of one of the two types of sake containers that are Robert Yellin's subject in "Ode to Japanese Pottery." The reason, I thought, was simple: While a student in Kyoto during the 1960s, I was only an occasional drinker, and naturally it was beer, not sake, that was usually served.
But Aoyama Wahei, who provides "Ode" with a short history of sake utensils, suggests another: The term "guinomi" gained currency only recently. Kaneshige Toyo (1896-1967), who in 1956 became the first Bizen potter designated a Living National Treasure, popularized the term, Aoyama says.