On your next trip to Japan, drink hot soup!
Before I became Japanized, I too enjoyed soup from home. Chicken soup, pea soup, tomato soup, and so many more. When you got sick you had chicken soup. Soup was always an appetizer and was an important part of food culture when growing up in Michigan State. Then I moved to Japan and now I enjoy Japanese soup.
In this post, I will introduce soybean soup.
Hot soup is great, isn’t it? Here in Japan they have this stuff called “miso soup,” and it is made from fermented soybeans, salt, and fungus! Think about that…? There are other additives used instead of fungus, too. The locals claim a myriad of health benefits and consider it the cornerstone of Japanese cuisine. Miso, like dashi, are the most important food components in Japanese cooking. Miso has over 15 essential vitamins and over 8 minerals.
As a raw paste you can add a small amount into hot water, stir, and then drink it. The locals here enjoy miso soup as a dip for pickled vegetables, meats and so much more. When and if you visit Japan, you will discover that there’s a lot of regionality to miso. Every prefecture has its own take on miso soup. The type in this picture is called Toriyasai miso and is made with chicken base and works very well with vegetables.
Often times, locals will drink miso soup either before eating a meal, or just after. And on a cold day, miso soup is the greatest! It soothes the stomach and stimulates the senses. Your nose opens up and you can feel the steam from the soup warm your face. Only in Japan can enjoy traditional miso soup made by hand. Avoid factory mass produced if you can, but if you can buy or try specialty miso soups, you will notice a major difference. In the olden days, Japanese mothers used to make miso by hand, and the lactic acid from their hands would mix in with the miso mix. This created the smoothest and best tasting miso!
I recommend on your next visit here to visit places in Saga, Prefecture and have a meal in a little local shop and have real miso!
This is Japan.