Vegetable Storehouse

In Abashiri, fresh vegetables were not easily available in winter, so vegetables harvested in autumn were pickled and stored for the coming winter.

Inmates were given about 25g of pickled vegetables per meal, equivalent to three slices of pickled radish, for example. In summer, inmates had freshly pickled cabbage, Chinese cabbage, and cucumber. In late autumn, at the first frost, logs were arranged in a vacant lot to hang Japanese radishes to dry.

About 3,000 radishes were pickled in a large barrel called a 25-koku barrel, which measured 1.6m in depth and diameter.