TANE JOURNEY
How much of it can you make yourself?
What you buy and what you can make. Looking once at the line between them
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01
It was settled that these are things you buy
What is in the kitchen, what is in the bathroom, what you are wearing.
Almost all of it looks as though it has been settled as something you buy.
But I was not the one who settled it.
Miso, soy sauce, vinegar, soap ── all of them were once made at home.
At some point the people who make and the people who use simply became separate;
the ways of making did not disappear.
This booklet is a map of that line.
Up to where is it something you buy, and from where is it something you can make?
Set them out, and the line is further over than I had thought.
There is no need to do all of it.
I do not make everything every day either.
There are things I cannot make, and days I do not make anything.
Not making is one way of choosing, too.
One is enough.
Once you find you can make one thing, the one beside it comes into view.
02
Starting in the kitchen
The place where you can begin with the fewest tools.
Seasonings
Koji ／ shio-koji ／ shoyu-koji ／ ama-koji ／ consommé koji ／ fermented ketchup
Amazake ／ miso ／ soy sauce ／ vinegar ／ persimmon vinegar
Ketchup ／ oyster sauce ／ chilli oil ／ dressings
Mayonnaise ／ bouillon ／ salted lemon
Put koji down as a single word and its range does not show.
There is a long way to go on from koji. Shio-koji and shoyu-koji both come after it.
Fermenting
Miso ／ amazake ／ nukadoko (rice-bran bed) ／ pickles ／ sourdough
Sauerkraut ／ yoghurt ／ natto ／ kimchi ／ gochujang
The kitchen becomes a place with living things in it.
Raising yeast, and keeping it going
Starting a wild yeast ／ keeping the yeast going
Raising a sourdough starter
Baking while watching the fermentation
Rather than “making bread,” raising yeast and keeping it going is closer to what I am doing.
Baking is only the last small step.
Keeping the season
Umeboshi (plum work) ／ things to dry, dried goods ／ preserved food
Gari ／ pickled cucumber
Jam from the season’s fruit ／ syrup ／ fruit vinegar
Salted vegetables ／ fermented pickles
A way of eating what belongs to a season on a day that is not that season.
Drinks
Tea blends ／ herbal tea blends ／ coffee
Putting a meal together
Cooking with the season ／ how to apply heat in summer
Shindofuji (身土不二) ── land and body
Starting from what is in the house
Using fermented seasonings in everyday cooking
The balance of sweet, salt, sour and savoury
Using a whole ingredient ／ carrying what is left into the next dish
Adjusting the taste so children can eat it too ／ food for children and weaning
Eating by the calendar
Food for the seasonal festivals (otoso ／ nanakusa ／ the peach festival ／ pumpkin at the winter solstice)
Putting the year’s seasonal occasions on the table
Other
Bacon ／ sweets ／ acorn as a complete food
* I make sake too. In Japan, however, anything with an alcohol content of one percent or more cannot be made without a licence.
How to make it is not written in this booklet. The same handwork, and what you can do changes with where you live.
(Amazake is under one percent, so this rule does not apply to it.)
03
What touches the skin
Soap ／ shampoo ／ conditioner
Basic skincare ／ cream ／ sunscreen
Beeswax and oil
Foundation ／ lipstick ／ blush
Making to suit the person
Cosmetics made for one person at a time
Formulas to suit the season (for summer, for winter)
Working out the proportions of oil, wax, water and powder
Adjusting how it feels in use
Making for yourself and making to hand to someone else are two different matters.
Once you are the one handing it over, the rules of the country you live in come into it.
Looking at skin
Looking at the state of the skin ／ changes with the season ／ changes with age
Thinking with the person’s way of living included
Reading the ingredients of cosmetics ／ building your own basis for choosing cosmetics
I do as much looking as I do making.
04
Things for the house, things to wear
Washing
Laundry ／ making and choosing detergent ／ knowing the kinds of dirt
Not washing too much ／ washing only where it is needed ／ washing to suit the material
Things for the house
Laundry detergent ／ toothpaste ／ mouthwash
Cleaning (natural cleaning with baking soda, citric acid and the like)
Candles ／ beeswax wraps
Setting the kitchen in order
Choosing cooking tools ／ knowing how tools differ by material
Choosing storage (crocks ／ wooden barrels ／ jars)
Caring for tools ／ storing so food is not wasted
Bringing older kitchen work into the life you live now
Mending, and using for a long time
Knitting ／ the sewing machine ／ sewing by hand
Repairing ／ remaking ／ using things up
Before buying a replacement, try doing something about it with your own hands.
With all this included, it becomes wider than the frame of “what we wear.”
05
Growing, and returning it to the soil
Saving seed
A kitchen garden ／ growing vegetables ／ growing herbs
Growing sprouts ／ growing mushrooms
Compost
The circle closes only when it goes as far as saving the seed.
If you grow from bought seed, eat, and stop there, the circle stays open.
06
Using plants across the lines
Infusing herbs ／ steeping plants in oil
Tinctures ／ building a herbal tea ／ using scent
The old home remedies that can be done at home
One plant may be eaten, drunk, and used on the skin.
It is the shop floor that divides things into food, cosmetics and remedies; the plants themselves are not divided.
* I am studying French-style medical aromatherapy and medical herbalism.
In this booklet, however, I have not written what anything works for.
QUICK VIEW
Where to look when you choose
What you do not make, you end up choosing.
The way a person chooses changes a little once they know it can be made.
- Read the ingredient list and the ingredient labellingYou do not need to know every name. The order, and where the list breaks off
- Look at the material itselfFor salt ── which sea? How was it made? Sun-dried, or boiled down in a pan?
- Choose tools and vesselsWhat is it made of? Can it be looked after?
- Think about what to take awaySometimes what you take away does more than what you add
- How to choose what you have decided “not to make”Deciding not to make is part of choosing, too
- Changing what you buy is only a move within what has been handed to you.Once you know it can be made, you move from the side that chooses to the side that makes. It stops being about products and becomes about your own ability.
For the days you do not make
Making everything yourself is hard work.
There are people who keep to the old ways of doing things.
There are people who make with conviction, one at a time, with great care.
Buying from people like that is part of choosing, too.
I do not rank the person who makes above and the person who buys below.
What you choose on a day you cannot make matters just as much as the days you do.
Trace it back, and it looks different
Apart from whether something can be made, there is another approach: tracing why it came to be this way.
The history of ingredients ／ what people used to eat ／ how fermentation works
The ingredients of cosmetics ／ how skin works ／ the materials tools are made of
Laws and labelling rules ／ heirloom varieties
Holding today’s science and the older wisdom up against each other
- It is not taken up because it is old.Trace it, try it, and keep what feels comfortable to you.
Sources
What this issue is made from
Everything set out in this booklet is something I actually do.
No item was added on a whim.
On sake ── under Japan’s Liquor Tax Act, a drink with an alcohol content of 1 percent or more counts as “liquor,”
and a licence is required to produce it (酒税法2条1項・7条、罰則54条／国税庁「自家醸造」 ── Liquor Tax Act, Art. 2(1) and Art. 7, penalties in Art. 54; National Tax Agency, “Home brewing”).
I have written that I make it, but I have not handed over how.
Amazake has an alcohol content under 1 percent, so this rule does not apply to it.
On sunscreen ── in the United States it is treated as an over-the-counter (OTC) drug.
In this booklet it is only named; nothing is written about its effects.
On medical aromatherapy and medical herbalism ── they are written as the names of what I have studied.
I have not written in terms of what they work for.
Things are set into four boxes ── what has been confirmed by science ／ what is still being studied ／
what has long been said ／ what I have tried myself and felt.
Because when they are mixed, each of these ways of knowing disappears.
In closing
About this booklet
This is a piece of free reading from TANE JOURNEY.
What we hand over is not an answer, but a basis for choosing.
There is no need to copy what is set out here as it is.
Daily life, family, land and season all differ from person to person.
What you have changed into a shape that suits you passes on to the next person.
When you find one thing you can make, you might begin there.
TAKE IT WITH YOU
To keep it at hand
The same content is also available laid out as a booklet.
All of the reading is free. The other issues are at Free reading.