Japanese pickles are completely different to British pickles as they are not very often pickled in vinegar. Pickling is a form of preserving food and Japanese pickles can be made with a much wider range of ingredients; salt, soya sauce, miso, nuka (rice bran), sake kasu (the solid remains from the sake making process, also known as “sake cake”) and vinegar. Tsukemono literally means that the ingredients are placed in the pickling ingredient (a form of marinating).
There is often the misunderstanding that some Japanese food are pickles when they are produced in a completely different manner. For instance, konbu tsukudani is a dish where konbu is cooked in soya sauce and mirin and boiled down for a long time.
Sarah Wedgbury Consulting 