Nourished Magazine :: Wisdom to thrive by

Beans, also known as legumes and pulses, are important sources of protein. The soybean, in particular, has received much attention for the quality and quantity of protein it contains. Soybeans are known throughout East Asia as “the meat of the fields.” Unfortunately, this dense bean can be difficult to digest. Plain cooked soybeans are notorious for the flatulence and indigestion they cause. Fermentation pre-digests the beans, breaking down complex proteins into amino acids that the human body can more easily absorb.

Fermentation is the most effective way to realize the powerful nutritive potential of legumes. In addition, when beans are fermented together with grains, as they frequently are, the ferment is a complete protein, containing all the amino acids essential to human nutrition. The United States is the world’s largest grower of soybeans. Very little of it becomes nutritious food for humans. Most of it is processed into livestock feed and fry oil. Soybean byproducts also wind up in plastics, adhesives, paints, inks, and solvents.

The soybean has become a potent symbol in debates about world hunger. “Enormous quantities of the highest-quality food sources are fed to animals,” objects Frances Moore Lappé in Diet for a Small Planet..1 She calculates that cattle are fed 21 pounds of protein to produce a single pound of meat protein for human consumption, a shameful and unconscionable waste in a world where thousands die of starvation each day.

Diet for a Small Planet helped to popularize vegetarianism in the United States a generation ago, and the vegetarian subculture adopted a range of traditional Asian soy ferments, such as miso, tempeh, and tamari (or soy sauce). Actually, vegetarianism and fermented soy foods have a long-standing connection. The earliest bean ferments were pioneered more than a thousand years ago by Buddhists in China seeking alternatives to a meat-based diet. They were reinterpretations of a much older Chinese fermentation tradition of jiangs.

Jiangs were condiments fermented primarily from fish and meat, in a complex and meaningful array of styles. The Analects of Confucius (c. 500 B.C.) direct that “Foods not accompanied by the appropriate variety of jiang should not be served. Rather than using only one to season all foods, you should provide many to ensure harmony with each of the basic food types.”..2

Buddhism and its soy foods spread to other parts of Asia, including Japan. Japan had its own ancient fish fermentation tradition, a condiment called hishio. Soybean fermentation was again reinterpreted; by the year 901 the Japanese word miso was recorded in documents.

In Japan, the consumption of miso spread beyond the Buddhist monasteries during the Kamakura period, 1185 to 1333, which started with a samurai coup against an inattentive royalty living it up in luxurious splendor. The new rulers stressed simplicity, including a diet based on rice, complemented by vegetables, soy, and seafood. It was during this period that miso soup was first developed and became popular. According to William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi’s The Book of Miso, “It came to be a symbol of the food of the common people.”..3 To this day, miso soup is a staple of Japanese cuisine.

MAKING MISO

Miso is a uniquely grounding food, often the product of years of fermentation. It embodies the contractive energy of yang in the yin-yang energetics that underlie Chinese philosophy and medicine (and the macrobiotic diet). In Japanese folk wisdom, miso has long been associated with good health and longevity.

One specific health benefit of miso is the protection it provides against exposure to radiation and heavy metals. The research that verified this was conducted in Japan in the wake of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and grew out of the observations of a Nagasaki physician, Dr. Shinichoro Akizuki. Dr. Akizuki was out of town the day of the bombing, and the hospital where he worked was destroyed. He returned to Nagasaki to treat survivors of the bombing.

He and his staff ate miso soup together every day and never experienced any radiation sickness, despite their proximity to the fallout. Dr. Akizuki’s anecdotal account of this experience led to the finding that miso contains an alkaloid called dipicolinic acid that binds with heavy metals and carries them out of the body..4 In our radioactive world, we could all do with some of that healing.

Dr. Crazy Owl made the first homemade miso I tried. Dr. Owl is a friend now in his mid-seventies, who dropped out of a career in statistical analysis thirty-some years ago to devote himself to the study of Chinese medicine. He’s a quirky practitioner, emphatic about his beliefs. Miso is among the healing foods he advocates most vociferously. Dr. Owl has been making miso for many years, and brought some to Short Mountain [where Sandor lives - Ed].

Owl’s homemade miso was chunky and rich. Its aliveness inspired me to learn how to make miso, and I have made crocks of it every winter since. Of all the foods I have fermented, this is the one that has met with the greatest appreciation over time. So few people make their own miso, and the people who use miso at all are very passionate about it. Making your own miso to share with the people you love is a way to nourish them deeply.

Making miso requires great patience. Most varieties ferment for at least a full year. But waiting is the hardest part of the process. Making it is really quite simple. Miso is traditionally made and decanted during cool seasons, when relatively few airborne microorganisms are active, but I’ve made miso in the heat of summer with fine results.

Though miso is classically made with soybeans, it can be made with any legume or combination of legumes. I’ve made miso using chickpeas, lima beans, black turtle beans, split peas, lentils, blackeyed peas, kidney beans, adzuki beans, and more. The distinctive color and flavor of each bean carries over into the miso it produces.

Use what is abundantly available to you, and be bold in your fermentation experimentation!

Red Miso

This miso is strong and salty, and it requires at least a full year of fermentation. It is a style traditionally known as red miso when made with soybeans, though its color can vary, especially using different beans. A shorter-term “sweet” miso recipe follows this one.

TIMEFRAME: 1 year or more

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT:
Ceramic crock or food-grade plastic bucket, at least
1-gallon/4-liter capacity
Lid that fits snugly inside (plate or hardwood disk)
Heavy weight (scrubbed and boiled rock)
Cloth or plastic (to cover the crock and keep dust and flies out)

INGREDIENTS (for 1 gallon/4 liters):

• 4 cups/1 liter dried beans
• 1 cup/250 milliliters sea salt, plus 1?4 cup/60 milliliters more for the crock
• 2 tablespoons/30 milliliters live unpasteurized mature miso
• 5 cups/1.25 liters koji (about 13?4 pounds/850 grams)

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PROCESS:

1. Soak beans overnight and cook until soft. Take care not to burn the beans, especially if you’re using soybeans, which take a long while to cook.
2. Place a colander over a pot and drain beans, saving bean cooking liquid.
3. Take 2 cups (500 milliliters) of the bean cooking liquid (or boiling water) and dissolve 1 cup (250 milliliters) of salt in it to make a strong brine. Stir until the salt is completely dissolved. Set the brine aside to cool.
4. Mash beans to desired smoothness, using whatever tools are available. I generally use a potato masher and leave the beans fairly chunky.
5. Check the temperature of the brine. You don’t need a thermometer. Stick your (clean!) finger in it. Once it’s comfortable to the touch, take about 1 cup (250 milliliters) of it out and mash the mature miso into it. Then return the miso mash to the brine, and add the koji. Finally, add this mixture to the mashed beans and mix until the texture is uniform. If it seems thicker than miso you’ve had, add some more bean cooking liquid or water to desired consistency. This is your miso; the remaining steps involve packaging it for its long fermentation.
6. Salt the bottom and side surfaces of your fermenting vessel with wet fingers dipped in sea salt. The idea is to have higher salt content at the edges to protect the miso from unwanted wild organisms.
7. Pack the miso tightly into the crock, taking care to expel air pockets. Smooth the top and sprinkle a layer of salt over it. Don’t be timid about salting the top. You’ll scrape away the top layer and discardit when you dig out the miso.
8. Cover with a lid. A hardwood lid cut to exactly the size and shape of the crock is ideal, but I usually use the biggest plate I can find that fits inside the crock. Rest a heavy weight on the lid. I find a rock, scrub it clean, and boil it. The weight is important because, as with sauerkraut, it forces the solid ferment under the protection of the salty brine. Finally, place an outer cover over the whole thing, to keep dust and flies out. Heavy woven plastic sacks are most durable, but cloth or heavy paper are fine, too. Tie or tape the cover over the crock.
9. Label clearly with indelible markers. Labeling is especially important once you have multiple batches going from different years. Store in a cellar, barn, or other unheated environment.
10. Wait. Try some the fall or winter after the first summer of fermentation. This is called one-year miso. The years are counted as the summers, periods of most active fermentation, that have passed. Repack it carefully, salting the new top layer. Then try it a year later, even a year after that. The flavor of miso will mellow and develop over time. I tried some nineyear-old miso recently, and it was sublime, like a well-aged wine.
11. A note on decanting: When you open a crock of miso that has been fermenting for a couple of years, the top layer may be quite ugly and off-putting. Skim it off, throw it in the compost, and trust that below the surface the miso will be gorgeous and smell and taste great. I usually dig out a whole 5-gallon (20-liter) crock of miso at once. I pack the miso into thoroughly clean glass jars. If the tops are metal, I use a layer of wax paper between the jar and the lid, as miso causes metal to corrode. I store the jars in the basement. Since fermentation continues, the jars build up pressure, which needs to be periodically released by opening the jars. Occasionally, mold will form on the surface of a jar of miso. As with the crock, scrape it away, and enjoy what remains beneath it. To avoid these inconveniences, you can store miso in the fridge.

Sweet Miso

Miso is made many different styles. In addition to various types of beans and grains, different proportions of salt and koji, and length of fermentation can distinguish misos. Sweet miso is radically different from the more widely known saltier and much longer fermented misos. Sweet miso is actually sweet. It contains about half as much salt in proportion to the beans, and twice as much koji, as the red miso described above. It ferments for a much shorter time, up to about two months, at higher temperatures.

TIMEFRAME: 4 to 8 weeks

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT:
Same as miso process described above

INGREDIENTS (for 1 gallon/4 liters):

• 4 cups/1 liter dried beans
• 1?2 cup/125 milliliters sea salt
• 10 cups/2.5 liters koji (about 31?2 pounds/1.5 kilograms; see “Finding Koji,)

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PROCESS:
Follow the steps detailed for miso, above, with the following modifications:

1. Use only 1/2 cup (125 milliliters) of salt rather than a full cup, and 10 cups (2.5 liters) of koji rather than 5 cups.
2. Sweet miso does not use mature miso from an earlier batch. Mature miso contains biodiverse organisms, including acid-creating Lactobacilli. Sweet miso is sweet because it is fermented primarily with koji molds and decanted before Lactobacilli have an opportunity to proliferate.
3. There is no need to salt the crock for this shorter-term miso.
4. Store the crock in an unobtrusive corner of your kitchen, or any other warm place where it won’t be in your way. Sweet miso ferments quickly in a warm environment. Try some after a month. Decant some to eat young, store it in the refrigerator, and carefully repack the crock, leveling the miso surface, and replacing the lid, weight, and outer cover.
5. Continue fermenting for another few weeks to a month. When you decant the miso, you will notice that the koji grains are still intact and crunchy. Purée the miso in a food processor with a little water to make it into a smooth paste. Pack the miso into thoroughly clean glass jars. If the tops are metal, use a layer of wax paper between the jar and the lid, as miso causes metal to corrode. In contrast to the saltier miso that can store well at basement temperatures, sweet miso is best refrigerated. If mold forms on the surface of a jar of miso, scrape it away, and enjoy what remains beneath it.

Miso Soup

The classic way to enjoy miso is in the form of miso soup. The comfort and healing that Jewish grandmothers have proverbially offered in the form of chicken soup, I have more often found in miso soup. No food I know is more soothing. When you make miso soup, miso is the last thing you add. In its simplest form, miso soup is just hot water with miso, about 1 tablespoon (15 milliliters) of miso per cup (250 milliliters) of water. Add the hot water to the miso and blend it thoroughly. Boiling miso will kill it.

On the other hand, miso soup can be as elaborate as you want. Adding seaweed is generally where I start. Seaweeds have deep, complex flavors. Some people think it makes them sound more appealing to call them sea vegetables. But I like to honor their wildness by calling them weeds. They carry the essence of the sea. They are rich in nutritional and healing properties. One of their specific benefits is a compound called alginic acid, which binds with heavy metals, such as lead and mercury, and radioactive elements like strontium 90, and carries them out of your body (much like the dipicolinic acid of miso).

Seaweeds also nourish the cardiovascular system, improve digestion, help regulate metabolism and glandular and hormonal flows, and calm the nervous system..5 I love to throw seaweed into pretty much anything I cook. Miso soup is almost always prepared with seaweed. Japanese recipes for dashi, or soup stock, traditionally call for kombu, a Pacific Ocean seaweed. I get my seaweed from small-scale seaweed harvesters on the Maine coast, where kombu is not found. The North Atlantic equivalent is called Laminaria digitata. Digitata is a thick and hardy variety of kelp. Each stalk’s growth splits off into several digits of wavy greenbrown flesh, hence the name digitata.

I had a memorable experience harvesting digitata, guided by seaweed harvesting partners Matt and Raivo of Ironbound Island Seaweed, off the Schoodic Peninsula in “Downeast” Maine. We woke up at 4:00 A.M., squeezed ourselves into skintight wet suits, and drove down to the harbor. We got into a wooden boat that Matt had built himself, and towed a smaller wooden boat, which he had also built. Do-it-yourself has no limits. We glided through the calm bay waters into the foggy dawn for a long time. I wondered how my guides could possibly navigate in the dense grayness where the sea, sky, and land all blended into one. We saw seagulls and seals. The water got choppier. We were headed beyond the harbor to the turbulent ocean waters where digitata thrives. We arrived at our destination just as the tide was getting low enough to give us access. Seaweed harvesting is ruled by the tides. Matt and Raivo do almost all of their harvesting during the week each month when the tides are at their lowest. We anchored the big boat and got into the smaller boat, then aimed for a large stand of digitata growing from an underwater rock ledge. When we got near the digitata, we jumped out of the boat into the cold, choppy water. Matt and Raivo took turns staying in the boat to keep it from drifting away, continually rowing back to near where we were, so we could toss the digitata that we harvested into the boat.

There I was in the ocean, with a sharp knife in my hand. The idea was to stand on the rock ledge from which the digitata was growing and cut the stalk to harvest it. Sounds straightforward enough. And it would have been, had the waves been kind enough to stop. But every time a wave came rolling rhythmically in, suddenly the water over the rock ledge I was standing on was about five feet deep instead of two feet. Reaching down to the digitata stalk in the deeper water involved dunking my entire body, head included, into the ocean. And half the time the wave would knock me right off the rock ledge. I spent a lot of that morning flailing around, knife in one hand, seaweed in the other, feeling like Lucy Ricardo in another madcap misadventure. When I’d actually get a handful of digitata, the goal was to throw it into the rowboat, another challenge intensified by the rough water. It was crazy, and incredibly fun, regardless of how little I managed to harvest. As my body was pushed around by the waves, I identified with the seaweeds, whose lives are a continual push and pull of tidal influences.

Several small rowboat loads later, the tide was rising too high for us to continue, so we boated back in the mid-morning sun to the South Gouldsboro harbor, nestled in a bed of slippery digitata. When we got back to Matt and Raivo’s place, we shed our wet suits and ate, then got down to the business of hanging all the seaweed to dry. Each plant requires individual handling. After hours of hanging digitata, our hands were covered with gooey gelatinous slime. Another time when I helped Matt and Raivo hang wet seaweed, I had just been in an auto accident. I found that the flexible slimy seaweed absorbed the shock from my body.

Eating seaweed brings this soothing absorptive quality into your digestive tract. Most of the seaweed available in the United States is imported from Japan, where it is a popular staple ingredient and is farmed intensively. I want to make a plug for seaweed bioregionalism and urge readers to support small seaweed harvesters along America’s coastal waters. Matt and Raivo sell seaweed as Ironbound Island Seaweed. Other seaweed harvesters I can recommend are Larch Hanson in Maine and Ryan Drum in Washington. Contact information for these suppliers is listed in the Cultural Resources section. [of Wild Fermentation - Ed]

We were making miso soup..

Use whatever is in your refrigerator or your garden that needs to get used up. Here’s how I do it:

1. Start with water. One quart (1 liter) of water makes soup for 2 to 4 people.Quantities of the other ingredients are in proportion to a quart of water. Start heating the water to a boil, while you add other ingredients; once it boils, lower the heat and simmer.
2. Add the seaweed first. As it cooks, its flavors and qualities melt into the broth. I use scissors to cut up dried seaweed into small pieces, easier to fit in a spoon. Cut up a 3- to 4-inch (8- to 10-centimeter) strip of digitata, kombu, or another variety of seaweed, or more than one type. Add the small pieces of seaweed to the water. Once this boils for a few minutes, you have a traditional Japanese dashi, or stock. Make your miso soup from this, or make it more elaborate.
3. The next thing I add is root vegetables. Burdock root (gobo in Japanese) gives a hearty, earthy flavor to soup, as well as its tonifying and cleansing powers. Use about half a burdock root. Slice it lengthwise, then into thin half-moons. Also cut up a carrot and/or part of a daikon root. Add the root vegetables to the pot of soup stock.
4. Next I add mushrooms if I have them around. Shiitakes are my favorite, but any kind goes well in soup. I never wash mushrooms because they are so absorptive and I would rather have them absorb soup than plain water. Just wipe away any visible dirt. Slice 3 or 4 mushrooms into pieces small enough for a spoon and add them to the soup stock.
5. Cabbage is good in miso, just a little bit, chopped finely and added to the stock.
6. If you want heartier soup, you can add tofu. Take about half a pound (250 grams) of tofu, rinse it, slice it into small cubes, and add it to your stock. If you have any leftover cooked whole grains around, add a scoop of them to the stock. Break up any clumps with a spoon. Soups are an excellent opportunity for recycling leftovers.
7. Peel and chop four (or more!) cloves of garlic and prepare any green vegetables. Cut small pieces of florets from a stalk of broccoli, or chop up a few leaves of kale, collards, or other greens.
8. Check to make sure the root vegetables are tender and the tofu is hot. When they are, turn off the flame. Remove a cup of the stock and add the garlic and green vegetables to the pot. Cover the pot. Mash about 3 tablespoons (45 milliliters) of miso into the cup of stock you removed. For a hearty soup, you can also add 2 tablespoons (30 milliliters) of tahini. Once it’s well blended, return it to the pot of stock and stir. Taste the soup. Add more miso, if needed, using the same technique.
9. Garnish the soup with chopped scallions, wild onions, or chives. Enjoy. Soup like this is a one-dish meal.
10. When you heat leftover soup, heat it gently, trying not to boil the miso.

Miso-Tahini Spread

Another great way to enjoy miso is as a spread. In a small bowl, combine 1 tablespoon (15 milliliters) of miso, 2 tablespoons (30 milliliters) of tahini, the juice of half a lemon, and a finely chopped clove of garlic. Mix until well blended. Enjoy on bread or crackers. You can liquefy this basic delicious combination by adding more lemon juice, water, or “pot liquor,” the water left over from cooking vegetables.

Create a sauce for grains or vegetables this way, or a salad dressing. Miso and tahini are a versatile pair. One of my fellow communards, Stv, invented a wonderful variation on miso and tahini using sweet miso and almond butter. Experiment and vary!

Miso Pickles and Tamari

Miso is an excellent medium for pickling vegetables. In a small crock or jar, layer miso with root vegetables and whole garlic cloves. You can pickle the roots whole or sliced. Try to keep the vegetables from touching one another, so each piece will be surrounded by miso. Cover the top layer of vegetables with miso and weigh it down. Leave it to ferment in a cool place for a couple of weeks. The vegetables will absorb flavor and salt from the miso, and the miso will absorb flavor and water from the vegetables. Both miso and vegetables are transformed by the process. Dark liquid will rise to the top of the crock; this is sweet, rich tamari. Pour it off and savor its complex flavor. Enjoy the vegetables as pickles, and the miso as soup or spread. Be aware that this miso now has a higher proportion of water and a lower proportion of salt, so its keeping potential will be somewhat diminished.

About the Author...

Author Sandor Katz is a self-described "fermentation fetishist". His explorations in fermentation developed out of overlapping interests in cooking, nutrition, and gardening. A long-term HIV/AIDS survivor, Katz considers fermented foods to be an important part of his healing. A native of New York City, the author is a resident steward of Short Mountain Sanctuary, a queer intentional community in the wooded hills of Tennessee. Visit his website at wildfermentation.com