Daikon and carrot are cut into fine strips and salted. They are mixed with seasoned vinegar, and dried persimmon, sliced thin, goes in with them. Sometimes shredded yuzu peel is scattered over the top. That is the whole of it, and it takes very little time to put together.

In Nara, red-and-white namasu with dried persimmon in it has been the standard new year version, passed down and put in the osechi boxes every year.

The question worth asking is why the persimmon is in there at all, and the answer turns out to be economic rather than a matter of taste.

Sugar was expensive. Dried persimmon was used in its place in cooking, and in a sharp vinegared salad the fruit takes the edge off and makes it easier to eat. The sweetness in this dish is not an ingredient added for pleasure but a substitute for one that could not be afforded. It is made throughout the prefecture, handed from parents to children, and still put together in kitchens every December. Nothing about the method has been modernized, because there is nothing in it to modernize. The dish is old; it is said to have been eaten as far back as the Heian period. In a place known for growing persimmons, the persimmon ended up working as a seasoning rather than as fruit.