Among the many thoughtful gifts I received this Christmas was a copy of Harumi’s Japanese Cooking. It’s a wonderful cookbook, filled with easy and tasty recipes — the kind you might find in Orange Page or Lettuce Club.

While I love the recipes, I think it’s too bad the publisher didn’t include more pictures of raw ingredients. Most people, for example, don’t know what myoga looks like.

Here, for example, is a picture of the finished “eggplant salad” that I made last week.

The recipe calls for sesame paste, suggesting you use peanut butter of tahini as a substitute. I have to say, actual sesame paste really does taste good, and I’ve included a picture of what it looks like in case you are interested in finding some for yourself.

If you know basic hiragana, then you might recognize “goma” which means sesame.