I personally don’t know where this topic came from… it just sort of popped out at me.

Fermentation. It’s quite common in Asia, and various Japanese foods are fermented. One is something a lot of people in the U.S. don’t like: natto. However healthy this food is considered, many people stay away from it because of it’s smell. Not to mention the fact that it’s really sticky, too - and can have a strong taste that you might not like. But, before you classify fermented foods as bad, here are some things that some of you have probably eaten before, and enjoyed.

Miso. I’m pretty sure everyone who’s reading this has had miso soup (misoshiru) before, right? Well, did you know that the main ingredient in that traditional dish is fermented? Yes, miso is made by fermenting rice, barley, and soybeans (edamame) with salt and the mold kojikin (really a type of fungi used to ferment soy beans)

Soy sauce (shoyu). This very common ingredient is fremented sauce made up of soy beans, roasted grain, water, and salt. There are many different types depending on country, like the Japanese soy sauce would be sweeter than the Chinese version because of wheat being a primary ingredient. Japanese soy sauce also has more of an alcoholic taste than other versions. Within the country, Japan has five different categories depending on how it’s brewed, and lots of newer varieties. The main five types are Koikuchi (made of roughly equal quantities of soybean and wheat), Usukuchi (saltier, lighter than koikuchi), Tamari (richer in flavor than koikuchi; little or no wheat), Shiro (mostly wheat and very little soy bean, unlike Tamari), and finally Saishikomi (much darker and has a stronger flavor than Koikuchi).

Amazake and sake. Both somewhat similar to each other, seeing as sake is an ingredient in amazake. Amazake is low-alcoholic traditional Japanese drink made of fermented rice. It’s made of miso, soy sauce, and sake. Well… what makes it different from sake? Kojikin (also used in miso) is added to the cooled rice, causing the carbohydrates to break down into simpler unrefined sugars. Eventually, as the mixture incubates, sweetess naturally develops. This drink is used as a dessert, snack, sweetening agent, baby food, salad dressing, or smoothie! This is sold during the New Year, and during the winter time. Sake, when used in the English langauge only means one thing. However, in Japan, sake is a term that can be used for other types of alcoholic beverages. In order to distinguish true sake from other drinks, the word ‘nihonshu’ is used. You’ve all heard sake being called rice wine before, right? Well, believe it or not, sake is more like beer than it is wine. Wine is the fermentation of plant juices while sake is the fermentation of rice, making more similar to beer (produced with the fermentation of sugars from starch-based material). There are several ways to brew sake, all of the results being different. Kimoto (used for the past 300 years, however rare today), Yamahai (around since early 1900s, used for higher acidity and complex flavors), Sokujou (modern, has cleaner flavor than Kimoto or Yamahai), Namazake (has not been pasteurized), Genshu (undiluted), Muroka (unflitered, little bit of cloudyness), Nigorizake (cloudy, unfiltered, before served it is shaken to mix rice sediment inside of the drink, making it white), Doburoku (classic style, cloudy milky color and considered most delicious - made by adding steamed rice at the end of fermentation). Just like soy sauce, sake has many varieties, and many terms used to describe it. Like honjozo-shu has a small amount of distilled alcohol, and junmai-shu is rice-only sake. Taruzake is sake aged in cedar barrels, giving it some sort of a spiciness; koshu is aged sake.

So, is your opinion on fermented foods different from it was before? Is it still the same?