The truth about my donabe smoker is that it isn’t mine at all. It belongs to my boyfriend. He got it as a Christmas present last year—from me. For months, possibly years, he’d been talking about finding a magical, self-contained countertop smoker, something engineered to make food taste like it came from afire pitand not an apartment with absolutely no ventilation. I did a lot of internet sleuthing to try to make this a reality, but could never find an appliance that was exactly right: one that would fit our space, make the kinds of foods I knew he wanted to eat, and not repeatedly trigger the fire alarm.
Then, while scrolling through the ceramics onJinenlast November, thinking I’d buy three more of hisfavorite mugand call it a gift set, I saw it: theIbushi Gin donabe smoker. It seemed elegant but durable, craftily designed but straightforward, and it came in a muted earth tone (extremely his aesthetic). Of course, it also promised to imbue a wide range of ingredients with smoky flavor. It was the perfect present. Less than 24 hours after he unwrapped it, I’d mentally granted myself primary custody.
Donabe are traditional Japanese clay pots used for cooking over an open flame. Heavy, attractive, and meant to last for generations, they easily transition from the stovetop to the table, and are a staple in everyday Japanese home cooking. While many are, likeDutch ovens, do-it-all in nature, some are formulated for specific tasks, like steaming vegetables or making stews andhotpotdishes like sukiyaki and shabu-shabu. The style made for smoking comes with wire grates that sit inside the pot at various heights; when wood chips placed at the bottom of the pot start to smolder, the donabe fills with smoke, which floats through the grates and permeates ingredients from every angle.
My (fine, our)(FINE,his) donabe smoker, the Ibushi Gin, is made by Nagatani-En, a ceramics company based in Iga, Japan, southeast of Kyoto. Nagatani-En first started making cookware in 1832, but their products were not available for purchase in the United States until 2008, when cookbook author and cooking instructor Naoko Takei Moore started importing them to her home in Los Angeles. Moore grew up in Tokyo and was surprised to learn, upon moving stateside, that donabe were virtually impossible to find in the U.S. “They’re essentially a national cookware for Japanese people,” she says. “Everybodyis familiar with donabe.” But beyond the pot itself, it was the donabe-inspired way of eating she felt Americans were missing out on most. “A donabe symbolizes communal dining. Having a donabe meal helps people bond—it’s a style of sharing with others that can translate into any culture and make people happy.”
Moore partnered withNagatani-Ento sell a few pots and teach classes on how to use them out of her house, but the passion project soon became a lot bigger than her personal kitchen could handle. Over a decade later, Moore now considers introducing Americans to her favorite cooking vessel her full time job: She sells an assortment of Nagatani-En donabe at her Los Angelesstore/culinary classroom, calledToiro, as well as through certain retailersonline. She wrote abookabout the tool, and even goes byMrs. Donabeon Instagram.
According to Moore, donabe smokers tend to be a bit dramatic, more so than their everyday counterparts. “When I make a dish with the Ibushi Gin at a dinner party,” she says, “everybody goes crazy.” This is very easy to believe; the first time I used the pot, pulling the lid off to release a fragrant puff of smoke felt like performing a magic trick.