Conjuring Up the World Through the Sense of Taste

BANGKOK — My grandmother in Tokyo kept a pail under her sink. It was filled with what resembled wet sand. But from its pungent depths came what I considered to be the most miraculous of treats — a pickled carrot or daikon or, one of my favorites, a bud of a ginger-like plant called myoga.

The pail contained rice bran, which provided a fermenting bed for a Japanese style of pickled vegetable known as nukazuke. Every day, even in her 90s, my grandmother would reach her arm into the bucket and aerate the bran.

The fermenting bed was my grandmother’s equivalent of a sourdough starter, a lesson in resourcefulness from a war widow who turned humble ingredients into something delicious.

I do not need to worry about preserving ingredients because of economic deprivation. Still, I took from my grandmother instructions in flavor.

The-New-York Times