【Reading】おてしょざら

【English Name】Small soy sauce dish

An oteshozara is a small, shallow dish for holding soy sauce or condiments. It is also read "teshozara," and is abbreviated to "otesho." Its etymology comes from the custom of adding a small amount of salt (teshio) to a meal tray, with the small dish for this called a "teshiozara" (hand-salt dish). In sushi, when eating Edomae chirashi, because each topping has different preparation, the proper etiquette is not to pour soy sauce over the whole dish but to take it into the oteshozara and dip each kind separately. It is also widely used in Japanese cuisine generally; for "kozuyu" in the Aizu region of Fukushima Prefecture, vermilion-lacquered Aizu-nuri ware is handed down as a dedicated serving dish. In the Izushi region of Hyogo Prefecture, serving soba on oteshozara at food stalls in the late Edo period is said to be the origin of sara-soba (plate soba), which is still served today on small Izushi-yaki dishes.