Soy sauce bottle
If ever there was a universally-recognizable symbol of Japanese cuisine it is surely these cute soy sauce bottles found in sushi restaurants throughout the world. (And for that matter any restaurant serving East Asian food.) But I’d never really thought about them until I read this article in the New York Times on the recent death of Kenji Ekuan, an industrial designer who won the contract from Kikkoman for creating them in the 1950s. The bottles are famous not only for their graceful shape but also the clever dripless spout. Mr. Ekuan went on to design many other things, including some models of the sleek Shinkansen trains. But it is for the soy sauce bottles that he will always be remembered.
