12 “Poor” Foods a 74-Year-Old Japanese Mother Still Eats Every Week (Each Under $1)

📗 My cookbook, The Supermarket Notebook: 162 recipes and 100 kitchen tricks, with weekly shopping lists. https://chiyokocooks.com If you are watching this and thinking, I wish someone had written down how to eat well when the money is short, I did. At the back of the book there are weekly plans, each with its own shopping list. Everything comes from your own supermarket, measured in US cups and cooked on a stovetop, for one or two people. No oven. It is a 527-page PDF. It comes to your email in a minute. Read it on a phone, tablet or computer, or print it. Early bird price: $39 instead of $69. 7-day money-back guarantee. Get the book: https://chiyokocooks.com These are 12 "poor" foods my Japanese mother ate on our rice farm, and that I still eat every week at 74. Each one is cheap Japanese home cooking from an ordinary American supermarket, under a dollar a serving, cooked on a stovetop. No oven. You will learn what to do with yesterday's rice, how to salt a cabbage for three suppers, a supper with no cooking at all, the part of the vegetable most people throw away, a can most people walk past, and why none of these was ever poor food in Japan. Prices are per serving, from Walmart.com in October 2026. Your store may differ. Chapters 0:00 Why I am taking the word poor away 1:55 12. Yesterday's rice 2:43 11. Salted cabbage 3:47 10. Tea over rice 5:10 9. The rice ball 6:03 8. Bean sprouts 7:07 7. The soy sauce egg 8:05 6. The part you throw away 9:26 5. Potatoes in a pot 10:35 4. Miso soup from the drawer 11:42 3. Tofu, cold or warm 12:45 2. The can 13:54 1. The one I promised 16:05 A question for you I am Chiyoko, 74, from Murakami in Niigata, Japan. I cooked school lunch for 26 years, and now I cook for one. My mother never wrote anything down. I am writing it down. #japanesecooking #cheapmeals #japaneserecipes