MiSo Hot!

  

 

The acceptance of Japanese cuisine has been one of the most important developments in the culinary palates of nations around the world. Notorious for its rawness and vomit-inducing-texture, Japanese presentation has come a long way in encouraging even the most disparaging of connoisseur to well, give it a shot.

I’m neither Japanese nor the above mentioned disparaging connoisseur. But I’m built like a matador and have a serious relationship with food and everything that’s related to it. Hence.

My surprise regarding its popularity stems from a trip I made to Germany earlier this year. The country of sausage and bitter ale has managed to slot the erstwhile innocent and floppy breakfast as one of the most elaborate and well rehearsed concertos to ever come out of Rhineland. The sheer decadence of this early morning meal makes me want to revive my faith in the German God of sausage and cold cuts.

But no matter where you breakfast, on the menu or at the buffet, jostling for space among the egg Benedict’s, the bacon and wurst-fare are generous helpings of Miso Soup and other Japanese breakfast essentials.

The old style, basic type of Japanese breakfast consists of miso shiro (miso soup), steamed rice and pickles. Couple this with tamago-yaki (Japanese style omelette sweetened with sugar and seasoned with stock) or nori (sheets of dry seaweed) lifts it up a level. And adding side dishes such as boiled root-type vegetables, grilled fish, ohitashi (boiled green vegetables) or sunomono (a type of vinegared salad) and the meal starts to resemble an early dinner.

Miso has been an essential component of the diet of the Japanese regardless of their social status.  It is a slow fermented soya bean paste with strong salty flavour. This versatile paste is used in sauces, with meat, fish, and vegetables and forms the basis of most Japanese cooking. And it’s convenient too – serves as a soup accompaniment to morning and evening meals and provides the perfect foil to rice and other grains. The Japanese have been devoted fans of miso soup for approximately 500 years and has the seal of approval from a generation of ancestors.

Miso does not spoil even if it is left to ferment for over a year! In fact, it gradually matures, becoming more fulsome with the passage of time (it is made by fermenting soya beans with water while some other varieties may include rice).

Miso is also as easy to make as instant noodles – one just needs to add hot water! This can be made interesting by adding some seasonal vegetables or fish which transforms it into a soup brimming with nourishment! The savoury tasting liquid that results from making miso is called tamari – kinda like the fore runner to soya sauce. Miso is the very embodiment of this savoury flavour, the Japanese call umami.

For centuries, making miso is a job entrusted only to mother’s or wives. Japanese mothers pass on their miso making secrets to duty bound daughters. Eaten all year round, the quality of a household’s miso was even used to determine the fortunes of the family for that year; so making it well was a weighty responsibility.

~ by alternativefrock on October 14, 2007.