Seasonings of Okinawa

Miyakojima's salt starts from seawater pumped up from below ground. Having passed through layers of Ryukyu limestone, its mineral makeup differs from ordinary seawater, and that is also why it finishes as a powder.

The cooking turns on pork and kombu. Kombu does not grow here, yet the islands consume a great deal of it, a leftover from what the Kitamaebune trading ships carried. There are local spices too, island chili and hipachi among them, and the flavors here run on a different line from the mainland's.

• Salt made from underground seawater filtered through Ryukyu limestone
• The Kitamaebune that carried kombu, and the islands' own spices