aromatics, and delicacy. Until the 15th
century, Japanese soy sauce was simply the
excess fluid, or tamari, ladled from finished
soybean miso. By the 17th century, the now-
standard formula of roasted cracked wheat
and soybeans had been established for making
the sauce, and the resulting product given a
new name, shoyu. Shoyu began to appear on
western tables as an exotic and expensive item
by the 17th century.
Miso Miso is used as a soup base, as a
seasoning for various dishes, in marinades,
and as a medium for pickling vegetables.
There are dozens of different varieties.
Miso is made by cooking a grain or legume
— usually rice, sometimes barley, sometimes
soybean — and fermenting it in shallow trays
with koji starter for several days to develop
enzymes. The resulting koji is then mixed
with ground cooked soybeans, salt (5–15%),
and a dose of an earlier batch of miso (to