“Tortoiseshell” Pork and Radish Stew

Athough “tortoiseshell” (bekkō in Japanese) may sound like a strange name for a hearty pork and radish stew, the Japanese associate this name not with turtle meat (that’s called suppon in Japan), but with hexagonal configurations (the pattern on the tortoise’s back is made up of six-sided shapes) and with the mottled reddish-brown color of soy-braised chunks of food (they resemble the variegated shades of a tortoise’s shell).

As this savory meat and vegetable stew simm