Miso Making - Communing with Human and Microbial Neighbors
Published in Taproot Magazine Issue 56: Cultivate 2023
Heirloom soybean varieties
Miso, the traditional fermented and preserved food that is probably most familiar as a soup base, originated in China. Since then, miso making has been nurtured for a thousand years or more in Japan, where eating miso is considered indispensable to one’s health. An old Japanese proverb— 「みそは医者いらず」, or “miso wa isha irazu”— is similar to “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” but with miso instead of the fruit.
Miso is a paste made from a combination of soybeans, salt, and a mold called koji (Aspergillus oryzae) that is typically cultivated on rice but sometimes on barley or beans. The mixture is left to ferment, and what was first a salty bean mixture, slowly transforms into a paste packed with umami flavor, B12, amino acids, beneficial bacteria, enzymes, and so much more. Although it is very popular in its most basic form as miso-shiru (miso soup), there are myriad ways to apply miso in cooking. Today, there are over 1,300 varieties of miso across Japan, as every region boasts its own unique style.
Ball of wild koji on a rice plant
Koji grown on rice
Miso making at home was once a ubiquitous ritual in farming households during the winter months, when farmers had completed harvesting and processing their soybean and rice crops for the year—fresh ingredients ready to be turned into miso. The cooler months are favorable to a slow and long fermentation as well, creating a finished product with more depth of flavor. Perhaps wintertime also presents the rare moments when rural folk have a little extra time on their hands to slow down and dedicate themselves to the process.
Dry soybean plants in a field
Threshing the rice harvest
As miso flourished and became increasingly popular during the Edo period (1603–1867), small shops and fermenteries began to pop up, but many people continued to make their own miso at home. There is a term in Japanese—手前味噌 , or temae miso—which simply means “homemade miso,” but it has taken on a further meaning as a way to humble oneself a bit while boasting, “I don’t mean to brag about my miso, but . . . ” This expression grew out of the pride that people have traditionally carried for their secret family miso recipes. During the Showa period (1926-1989), miso production began to be industrialized and today, mass-produced misos that pale in flavor and vitality line the shelves of grocery stores. These factory-made varieties in plastic packaging (sometimes even pasteurized) have now made their way into most Japanese people’s refrigerators for their affordability and convenience.
If not tended to, miso making could easily become another skill forgotten to modern ways of life in Japan. However, there are still people who see the importance of continuing traditional food practices like this, and who therefore gather for collective miso-making events. Since returning to Japan several years ago, to reconnect with the land where I was born, I have been home-steading in the foothills of a mountain near the ocean. Here during the slow winters, I get together with friends to do exactly so. The idea is to make large batches that will (ideally) provide a year’s worth of miso for several families. It can seem like a huge undertaking, but many hands make for light work, and the process feels almost like a celebration: neighbors of the human and microbial variety coming together to create sustenance that will nourish us all for the year to come.
Miso making
First, giant pots of soybeans are soaked overnight. The next day, we boil them: a kamado, or traditional wood-fired hearth, is often set up to facilitate cooking such large quantities, and its fire keeps everyone’s spirits up on the chilly winter’s day. But we don’t stay cold for very long anyhow—not with all the bustling around carrying heavy pots, warm wafts of steam escaping their lids and rising off the hot beans as they’re poured out. The day is further brightened and warmed by the enjoyment of working shoulder to shoulder with friends, chatting and nibbling on bits of sweet koji rice as we do.
Son-mat and other ingredients
As mentioned before, the basic ingredients to make miso are soybeans, koji rice, and salt* (plus time!). However, I believe there is even another ingredient that is indispensable to the alchemy of miso: son-mat. Son-mat translates to “the taste of a mother’s hand” in Korean, and it is used in praise of a mother’s (or the chef’s) home-cooked meal, because of course there is nothing else like it.
*Any type of salt will do. In Japan sea salt is typically used due to a lack of natural salt deposits in the land, which makes sea salt the predominantly used variety.
But I like to think that son-mat is also referring to something beyond that, like the specific flavor that only a mother’s effort can impart to a dish, or to an invisible infusion of her love, or maybe even to an actual bacterial transmission that supports that specific family’s digestive health. So, imagine what happens when the many hands of a community go into making a batch of miso . . .
Once the cooking soybeans have become “as soft as an earlobe,” they are strained and ready to be mashed by any means necessary. My preferred method is to dive in as a group with clean bare hands—the best way to get that good, community son-mat. Once the beans have been mashed, the koji and salt are mixed in, then the entire batch is rolled into palm-sized balls. One after the other, the miso balls are thrown into fermentation crocks, where they get packed tight. This process always evokes uproars of laughter and excitement when some balls miss their mark.
After all the miso balls are safely tucked away into vessels, everyone heads home with their share, and that’s where the next stage of fermentation will begin. Even from the same batch of miso, no two crocks of finished miso will ever be alike. Each crockful will develop differently during the fermentation process as it interacts with the specific microbiome of each family’s home to mature into its unique 土味, or do-mi.
土味 do-mi
Do-mi is typically used to describe an old-fashioned and rustic flavor often found in handmade foods made in the countryside or in grandmothers’ kitchens. But I also resonate with the word’s literal translation: “earth flavor.” To me, do-mi describes the link between place and food, similar to the French terroir typically used to describe wine. There are many environmental influences that can impact the flavor of fermented foods. In the case of miso, everything—from the minerals in the soil where the soybean and rice plants grew to which sea waters the salt was harvested from to the many hands that mashed and mixed the paste—contributes to its taste. Other flavor-altering factors relate to the location of the miso during fermentation: the type of vessel (a wooden barrel made from cedar, a clay crock, or a plastic container), the microbes in the air and on the family members and the other creatures that call the space home, fluctuating temperatures and moisture levels, and even visiting microbes that get carried in on a passing breeze. This unassuming crock of soybean paste is in fact a melting pot of microorganisms from the land. Do-mi illustrates how the land can shape the flavor of our foods.
An old woman once told me a story about how her own mother would not allow anyone to wash off any of the mold and yeast that grew on the clay walls of their family 倉, or kura (storehouse). This is where they kept their barrels of miso, soy sauce, and the like, and she believed that group of microorganisms was the mother-starter of all their family ferments. I have also heard a similar story about how old sake breweries do not require a starter yeast to initiate fermentation; after so many years, the appropriate yeast simply lives in the rafters of the building, spontaneously inoculating each batch. These are examples of what a collaborative relationship with microorganisms can look like.
As time goes on and the seasons roll by, sometimes the crocks of miso tucked away in dark corners of a home are temporarily forgotten by the family. Nevertheless, the complex dance between bacteria, molds, and yeasts continue, quietly but feverishly. One day, after nine months to a year has passed, someone remembers the hidden stash of fermenting beans. With anticipation the family peels back the top layers to unearth a beautiful golden paste, a living food that will nourish them and enrich their microbiomes for another year.
Miso as extension of hands and place
Miso making is not just a food technique. It gathers people together. It is a way to commune and to strengthen our human ties. It is a rare opportunity to drop into healthy relationship with the invisible world of microorganisms, a world that is too often ignored or feared. The miso itself is both a living, breathing collective of organisms and an extension of the hands and places that created it. Especially after the recent pandemic, our relationships to each other and to microorganisms have taken a drastic turn, so we must not forget practices like this, that bring us together and remind us that we are all intricately linked. Making miso means celebrating the web of life, the connections that are synonymous with the well-being of all.
