Senmaizuke is said to begin with Daikokuya Tozaburo, a cook who served in the Kyoto imperial palace and, after leaving that post, started slicing Shogoin turnips thin and pickling them. Made now with kelp in vinegar, it does not keep for long at all. What it does have is the slight sliminess that the kelp gives to it and a pale, very delicate flavor.

Sugukizuke is an entirely different proposition from that. Suguki, a variety of turnip whose name can be written with characters meaning sour stem, is packed in salt alone and left to ferment, and the lactic acid produces a real sourness. Until the late Edo period, permission to grow it was restricted to the shake, the hereditary priestly households of Kamigamo shrine.

Shibazuke is eggplant and red shiso grown at Ohara, again salted and fermented and nothing else whatsoever added. The naming of it is attributed to Kenreimon-in, in the twelfth century.

Production of both senmaizuke and sugukizuke begins around the start of November. The sight of the pickling going on is described locally as part of what winter in Kyoto looks like, which is a strange and precise thing for a city to say about a vegetable.