The cooking of rice is a delicate process. It is first well washed overnight by rinsing it again and again until the water is quite clear, and emptied into a basket to strain. In the morning it is put into a deep iron pot which rests on a round earthen hearth or range by a flange around it; then, water is poured in, the actual amount requiring nice adjustment so as not to make the rice too soft or too hard, and next a thick wooden lid is put on. A few faggots are lit under the pot; but as soon as the rice begins to spurt, the fire is withdrawn, and the pot is allowed to cool slowly and equably; it is next lifted off the hearth and set on a straw-stand. When the rice has stood long enough to be of the same temperature and consistency throughout, the lid is removed and the rice transferred into a cylindrical wooden tub. Well-boiled rice is soft, but its grains have a lustre and are distinct from one another so that any single grain can be picked up with chopsticks. Excessive heat would have burnt the parts nearest the sides of the pot, while sudden heat would have produced rice of unequal consistency. After the rice-pot is removed, another pot is put over the hearth for making _miso_-soup; if the kitchen range is double-hearthed, the remainder of the faggots lit for the rice is transferred to the neighbouring hearth over which the soup-pot is hung before the rice-pot is removed from the other. _Miso_-soup contains strips of garden radish, edible seaweed (_alopteryx pinnatifida_), bean-curd, egg-plant, or other vegetables according to the season. These two, the rice and the soup, are all the cookery required in the morning. There must of course be hot water for tea. An invariable accompaniment at Japanese meals is the pickled vegetables. The commonest of these is the garden radish which has been pickled in a paste of powdered rice-bran and salt until it assumes a rich golden hue. Greens are also treated in the same way until their colour is dulled. But garden radishes, greens, small turnips, and egg-plants are also sprinkled over with salt and pressed for a few days. A few slices of these vegetables, after being thoroughly washed to get rid of the bran or salt, are always served at a meal. Most foreigners consider their smell nauseous; but to a Japanese a meal, however rich or dainty, would appear incomplete without these vegetables, pickled or salted. _Kōkō_ or _kōnomono_, which is the common name for them, means “fragrant article,” and it is believed by many foreigners that the name was given them on the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle; but the Japanese has no such aversion to their smell. The repugnance of strangers to these pickles is similar to the attitude of most Japanese towards cheese, the taste for which would require as much cultivation as that for _kōkō_ on the part of one to whom both articles are foreign.