Miso soup

Sixty-Grit said the doc told him to try to get more fermented food in his diet.

Let's learn from that and beat doc to the punch.

I already showed how miso is made traditionally from rice and beans and a rice mold, Aspergillus oryzae.

But what do you do with it?

For the longest time I thought that you just mix miso paste (similar in texture to peanut butter) with water and I couldn't figure out why mine compared poorly with the first course served in Japanese restaurants. Then the internet came and told me that my version was missing dashi.

I noticed certain similarities between restaurants. The tofu they add is a tiny. Just a few itty-bitty squares. They always have a few slivers of green onion stem sliced on the diagonal, and sometimes a few bits of wakame seaweed. And most often a single slice of mushroom. Very meager on the additions. More as a work of art than nutrition, but still very well balanced.

The tofu that I add is gigantic. The wakame fills the bowl and sliced mushrooms stuff the whole thing with onion all over the place. I like to add broccoli, asparagus, zucchini, yellow squash, sweet potato, russet potato, whatever I have on hand. It's ridiculous. I get carried away. The restrained Japanese versions always taste better than mine.

This woman's version is abbreviated. Her dashi does not have kombu kelp, her soup does not have mushroom or wakame. But hers is still probably better than mine.

These videos taught me how to add the miso. Their technique is better than mine.

You can also take miso and spread it over vegetables. It changes everything nicely.

I just now saw a video of a Japanese chocolatier who combines chocolate with miso. His premise is both chocolate and miso are fermented foods. The judges in France responded strongly and positively. It's a new chocolate experience.

Other people use miso as salad dressing while others use it as pasta sauce. But you must consume it right away. The live miso begins consuming the pasta immediately eventually turning it to mush. You want it to do that after you eat it, not before.

Amazon books [miso recipes]

Ha ha ha. I just now read the worst review for Fermentation on Wheels: road stories, food ramblings, and do-it-yourself recipes.

It's long.





3 stars:

I checked this book out at the library. The author was living in a commune in Oregon. She says she has a dream, and she has to take a bus and teach about fermented foods. She goes on about how she was looking for meaning in life. She talks about how she liked to eat ethnic foods when she lived in Houston, how she lived in Pennsylvania, New York, and then an Oregon commune. The woman talks a lot about herself. She talks way more about herself than she does fermentation. She travels around in the bus. She goes to California, and stays at a pot farm and gets stoned. She makes some fermented foods there. She likes to make mead, beer, and cyser. She just throws a package of store bought yeast in them to make them and calls it a day. At one point she drinks so much of her alcohol she can't remember conversations she had with people. One Yoga instructor guy she has no recollection of even meeting. She has random people coming in and out of her bus. She eventually goes to Arizona and stays at a goat farm. She gives a very basic recipe for how to make dairy kefir. Then she goes to some New Age community by Tucson and talks about their beliefs. She stops in Dallas, but she says she doesn't like Dallas because they don't share her "values". She goes on to Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, and then Tennessee where she meets Sandor Katz. Now that was special! I have his book, and it is very thorough on fermented foods. She goes to Polyface farm to meet Joel Salatin, who I have great respect for. Eventually she goes on to New York where she hooks up with an old boyfriend. Now she is going through Maine. I am just thoroughly sick of this book. She now is going to go back to New York to hook up with her boyfriend yet again. She always says the universe is telling her things. She states she wants to teach people about fermented foods, but mainly she just teaches people that are already in to fermented foods. She does go to a few schools, but mostly she goes to events already populated by fermenters. Too bad she could not reach out to mom's with children with Autism-me! Autism support groups! Kids with Autism greatly benefit from fermented foods. Oh but I live in the Dallas area and she doesn't like people in Dallas. I did give her three stars though because she is a fermenter. I love fermenters! She does give recipes in the book, but I really recommend Katz and Shockey if you want to ferment and are new. In this book she has simple illustrations and very basic instructions. Skip it!