May 9, 2025
Condiments in your fridge?
Just for fun! I was thinking the other day how different the contents of my fridge are to the fridge I grew up with! Just one example, I always have soy sauce in my fridge and usually at least one other unopened bottle in the cupboard. There was never soy sauce in my fridge growing up. And the friends I grew up with don't have soy sauce in their fridges even now. But my Uni friends all have soy sauce in their fridges, because they all lived in Japan for at least a year. I was just wondering what things do you have in your fridge here that you probably wouldn't have in your fridge in your home country had you never lived here.
Former nickname was "Saitama". Changed it to save confusion on place review posts! Irish, 20+ years in Japan! I also write on my personal website: insaitama.com
Best Answer
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on Jun 17
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on May 10
This is a fun question! Soy sauce wasn't a staple in my fridge back home, either, and it's something I always have on hand these days. We also have tubes of wasabi and karashi, and I don't think I'd ever in my life used those before living here. Mirin is another one that we use a lot in cooking and almost always have available. Outside the fridge but I guess still a condiment, we use sesame oil fairly regularly, and back home it was more a case of using olive oil.
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on May 10
Oops, my soy sauce is on the counter behind the cook top. Maybe I should put it in the fridge... I grew up in Vancouver, Canada. Soy sauce was an essential in our household's fridge, influenced by Chinese cuisine ubiquitous in the city. Variations on Chinese dishes were in heavy rotation in my family's kitchen. A favourite weeknight meal was stir-fried vegetables, ginger-soy sauce marinated chicken, and chowmein noodles.
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on May 10
@genkidesu WASABI! Yes. To my surprise, my brother seems to have always have wasabi in his fridge back in Ireland too! He has a sushi loving daughter! I personally don't use it, but we have it in our fridge here a lot too. Outside of the fridge, one of the things I will miss most if I move home is goma. We get a special sesame seasoning one (your sesame oil comment reminded me!), that I often give for omiyage too because it is so delicious.
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on May 10
@TonetoEdo the only Chinese cuisine we had growing up was take out from a Chinese restaurant. Its very popular at home. But my generation now are more adventurous so I think more people make their own stir fries these days. I would imagine they sell a lot more soy sauce in Ireland now than they did in my parent's day!
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on May 10
@BigfamJapan I am hoping that if I move back to Australia at some point that I'll still have good access to most of my fave things, most of the bigger towns and definitely the cities have Asian supermarkets/grocers with lots of imported stuff. The downside is that it will be significantly pricier!
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on May 10
@BigfamJapan Last time I was in Scotland to visit the relatives, all the items I needed for yakiudon were available at Sainsbury's and Aldi supermarkets. They loved it!
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on May 11
@TonetoEdo That's encouraging to hear that a lot of things are available at larger supermarket chains! Maybe if/when I move home I will be able to do the same, and not have to seek out dedicated supermarkets. I know in the US there's a chain of supermarkets called Mitsuwa and they sell all Japanese food, which is neat! They're not all over the country, but in some major cities like Los Angeles. https://mitsuwa.com/
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on May 11
@genkidesu Canada, too, has Japanese supermarkets! Vancouver has a dozen, including Fujiya and Konbiniya. T&T is a general Asian supermarket chain with a lot of Japanese staples. There are locations in Washington state and California. Whoops, this Q&A is evolving into sources for our Japanese fix when abroad!
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on Jun 18
@helloalissa we use mentsuyu too. While I probably might have ended up with shoyu in my fridge even if I never lived here, I doubt I'd ever have crossed paths with mentsuyu!!
10 Answers