In the old days in Japan, people hung white radish, turnip and other local vegetables under the eaves of ones’ homes for drying, and then used them to prepare pickles in late autumn / early winter for subsequent consumption during the winter period. Among them, "takuan" (white radish weathered and then pickled) was considered to typify the taste of the home where it was prepared. Scenes of vegetables hung at homes, a rarity now, were a vivid harbinger of the quickly approaching winter.

In Japan, pickles are typically prepared using salt, sake lees, rice bran (produced during rice polishing), or malted rice (produced as rice is steamed; an ingredient of soy sauce and fermented soybean paste). While Japanese pickle making dates back to the Nara era (A.D. 710 - 784), the preserved food did not spread among ordinary people until the Edo era (A.D. 1603 - 1867), during which time a variety of pickles made from local vegetables and even marine products came to be produced in different towns and regions.

White radish is rich in diastase and other digestive enzymes, vitamin C, and dietary fiber. Its nutritional value is further enhanced when it is prepared into pickles. In fact, this is generally true with any vegetable. Some of the reasons for this are that when vegetables are being pickled, microbes, lactic acid bacteria, and yeast fungi contained in the rice bran and malted rice turn into vitamins and minerals before seeping into the vegetables. Especially, the amount of vitamin B1 in vegetables substantially increases when they are pickled in rice bran.

Today, the various local Japanese pickles developed over the years are indispensable to the tables of Japanese homes.