Washoku, the Fermented Cuisine

the current — the mouth

Chapter One — Hishio: The Common Ancestor of Miso and Soy Sauce

第一章 — 醤（ひしお）・味噌と醤油の、共通の祖先

Introduction — From a Single Source

In the prologue, we called washoku a cuisine of microbes — fermentation upholding the core of the kitchen's flavour. But where, then, did the miso and soy sauce at that core come from?

Trace the lineage of these two seasonings back, and the streams presently merge into one, arriving at a single ancient word: hishio. Miso and soy sauce were, at the first, twin seasonings parted from one and the same source. This chapter retraces our way back to that point of parting.

I. What Hishio Is — A Vessel Where Salt Meets Microbe

Hishio is an old seasoning-food, made by steeping ingredients in salt and fermenting them by the power of kōji.1 Its source goes back to ancient China; the sixth-century agricultural text Qimin Yaoshu already sets down how hishio is made.1

Its workings lie in the meeting of two forces. One is salt. Salt halts decay and holds back the breeding of stray microbes — a guard. The other is the microbe, kōji foremost. The microbe turns the proteins and starches of the ingredient into umami and sweetness. Salt keeps; the microbe brews. This pairing of salt and microbe is the oldest principle of all washoku's fermented seasonings. Decay and fermentation are a hair's breadth apart — and it is salt that draws the line between them.

II. The Four Hishio — What Is Steeped

Hishio was divided into several kinds, according to what was steeped.2

Fruit, vegetables, and seaweed steeped together were called kusa-bishio — the prototype of the later pickle. Fish and flesh steeped were called uo-bishio and shishi-bishio, the source of the salted-fish kind. And grains — rice, wheat, soybean — steeped together were koku-bishio. This last is the prototype of miso and soy sauce.2

On the continent, hishio of fish and flesh was central. In Japan, however, it was the hishio of grain — koku-bishio — that grew especially large. It is said to have suited well a way of eating centred on plants, and to have kept better than the other hishio.2 A small fork in the road — what is steeped — quietly decided the shape of this country's table.

III. Mishō, or the Birth of Miso

The character for hishio appears in the Japanese record in the Taihō Code (701). And there, written in, was a word not found in the Chinese texts: mishō.3

Mishō is thought to have been a new seasoning, a hishio to which the Japanese had added their own contrivance. And this sound, "mishō," is held to have shifted, in time, into "miso" — the name of miso is thought to have been born here.3 Within a name that meant not yet hishio — hishio not quite come to be — another road had been opened.

At court, an office was set to oversee the making of hishio and mishō, and in the market of the Heian capital there even stood a stall that sold hishio.4 The solid mass of koku-bishio, steeped in salt — that firmer part grew on into miso.

IV. The Discovery at the Bottom of the Vat — The Branching toward Soy Sauce

While miso went the way of the solid, another road, unlooked for, was opened.

It was in the Kamakura period. At the bottom of the vat in which miso was prepared, a liquid had gathered of itself. This proved uncommonly good, and well suited to simmered dishes — so people found. This liquid at the bottom of the vat is tamari, and is held to be the beginning of soy sauce.5 The character for "soy sauce" appears in the record only later, from the Muromachi period.5

Here the branching is complete. From one and the same brewing, the solid part became miso, and the liquid part became soy sauce. A single source, koku-bishio, had parted into two forms.6

And this tamari at the bottom of the vat would, in time, take root in the soil of Mikawa — of Hekinan — to become one pillar of that land's brewing culture. It is just as we traced in the second paper, The Basin. The single watercourse is here joined to Hekinan.

Closing — Parted, and Met Again

Miso and soy sauce often wear separate faces at the table. Yet the two are not enemies. They are twin brothers, parted from one hishio into a solid and a liquid. That the two great seasonings upholding washoku's flavour share one ancient microbial ancestor — this teaches us that washoku's fermentation is not a scatter of separate techniques, but a single lineage.

There was, however, another stream in this country's fermentation. A wholly different microbial work, falling outside this gentle lineage of salt and kōji. That thread-drawing food — in the next chapter, we turn toward a fermentation that is not kōji: nattō.

Sources

This text is the first chapter of a white paper on washoku. The facts set down rest on the cited sources. The lineages of hishio, mishō, and tamari admit of several theories; this chapter follows the representative ones. It takes the composition of the Qimin Yaoshu to be of the sixth century. The finer points of the dates and routes of miso's and soy sauce's origins will be reinforced against primary sources in future revisions.

Footnotes

  1. "Hishio (shō)," Kotobank (Nihon Dai-hyakka Zensho; Heibonsha Mypedia, and others) (on hishio being an ancient seasoning made by adding kōji and salt to fish, animal flesh, soybean and the like and fermenting them, being the prototype of miso and soy sauce, and on the sixth-century Chinese agricultural text Qimin Yaoshu recording the making of black-bean hishio, flesh-hishio, fish-hishio and others). https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%86%A4-119620 ↩ ↩2

  2. "The History of Soy Sauce," Japan Soy Sauce Association (on hishio, transmitted from China, being divided by ingredient into kusa-bishio [fruit, vegetables, seaweed], uo-bishio/shishi-bishio [fish, flesh], and koku-bishio [grain], with the koku-bishio of rice, wheat and soybean taken as the prototype of soy sauce, and on koku-bishio developing in Japan because it suited a plant-centred diet and kept well). https://www.soysauce.or.jp/faq/about-history ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. "The Origins of Miso," Miso-gura (Hanamaruki) (on the character for hishio first appearing in the Taihō Code [701], which contains the word "mishō" not found in China, and on mishō being seen as the forerunner of miso, the sound "miso" being thought a shift from "mishō"). https://www.hanamaruki.co.jp/misogura/history/roots-of-miso/ ↩ ↩2

  4. "Hishio (shō)," Kotobank (on an office overseeing the making of hishio, kuki and mishō being set within the court's Daizen-shiki, and on a stall selling hishio standing in the eastern market of the Heian capital). https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%86%A4-119620 ↩

  5. "The History of Soy Sauce," Kimura Shōyu-ten (on a liquid gathering at the bottom of the vat during miso-making in the Kamakura period being discovered as tamari, held to be the beginning of soy sauce and the root of tamari soy sauce, and on the characters for "soy sauce" appearing in the Muromachi period). http://www.shouyu.net/yakata.html ↩ ↩2

  6. "Hishio," Historist (Yamakawa Concise Dictionary of Japanese History) (on koku-bishio being the prototype of miso and soy sauce, and on miso being made from the solid part and soy sauce as the liquid from the Muromachi period onward). https://www.historist.jp/word_j_hi/entry/036791/ ↩