Donabe is a kind of traditional Japanese clay cookware that is used over an open flame. The word is made from the Kanji characters do (“clay”) and nabe (“pot”). The most sought-after donabe are made in Iga, a province 210 miles southwest of Tokyo, where, for nearly 1,300 years, potters have been transforming the local clay into vessels, and firing them in kilns fed by wood from the region’s red pine forests. What makes donabe from Iga so desirable is their porosity, a result of the fact that Iga’s clay—dug from the remains of an ancient lake bed—is full of fossilized microorganisms that burn up in the heat of the kiln, leaving tiny air pockets which enhance the pottery’s ability to retain heat.
