Japanese homemaker Kirina Mochizuki has always considered okonomiyaki savory pancakes the ultimate comfort food: simple, satisfying and cheap.

These days, though, it¡¯s a struggle to get the dish, a favorite among Hiroshima natives like herself, on the table. With the price of cabbage ¡ª a key ingredient ¡ª tripling recently, Mochizuki makes daily trips to the supermarket in search of discounted produce, or resorts to using dried seaweed.

¡°I never imagined that okonomiyaki would become a delicacy,¡± the mother-of-two said, adding she had also taken to regrowing leek in a glass of water using the usually discarded root base.