Washoku, the Fermented Cuisine

the current — the mouth

Chapter Two — Nattō: The Other Fermentation, Not Kōji

第二章 — 納豆・麹ではない、もう一つの発酵

Introduction — Beyond the Lineage

Until now, we have followed kōji — the lineage of mould. The gentle stream of salt and kōji, beginning with hishio and running on to miso and soy sauce. Japan is often called "a civilisation of kōji."

But washoku's fermentation is not that alone. Here, for once, let us step outside the lineage of kōji. That thread-drawing food — nattō. What makes nattō is not kōji. It is the work of a wholly different microbe — a bacterium.

I. Bacillus, the Other Microbe

What gives rise to thread-drawing nattō is the microbe called nattō bacterium. This is a kind of Bacillus subtilis, a bacterium.1 Where kōji mould is one of the moulds, Bacillus is a bacterium — a thing of a different lineage even as a living kind.

Bacillus dwells widely close at hand — in the air, in dead grass, in rice straw. Liking warm, damp places, rice straw, fine at holding warmth and moisture, becomes an ideal home for it.1 Wrap steamed soybeans, still hot, in a sheath of rice straw, and the microbe living in the straw passes to the beans, and thread-drawing nattō comes to be.

When this meeting began is, even now, not certain. Around the Yayoi period, when rice culture took root, beans being boiled may have met this microbe by chance within a dwelling floored with straw — so one theory runs.1 Another tells of an episode bound up with the Heian warrior Minamoto no Yoshiie and his eastern campaign. None of these is sure proof; all stay within the realm of tradition. What is sure is that this microbe, other than kōji, brought another fermentation to this country's table.2

II. Two Nattō — Thread-drawing, and Salted

Here, let us touch on a fact that runs against expectation. There are, in truth, two kinds of the thing called "nattō."3

One is the thread-drawing nattō we picture now — the bacterial fermentation of Bacillus. The other is called shiokara-nattō, or tera-nattō (temple nattō). This one is fermented not by nattō bacterium but by kōji mould.4 It draws no thread; it is black, crumbling grains, near in taste and in making to miso and soy sauce. It is said to resemble Chinese douchi, or the Hatchō miso of Aichi.4

So within the single name "nattō," both lineages dwell together — the bacterial and the kōji. The two watersheds of washoku lie quietly side by side within this one word.

III. The Bean That Came with Zen — Temple Nattō

Where did this salted nattō — temple nattō — come from? It is held to have been transmitted in the Kamakura period, from China, through Zen monks.4 In the Zen temple, where flesh and fish were forsworn, it was a precious source of protein, and a food that kept. The Daitoku-ji nattō handed down at Daitoku-ji in Kyoto is told to have been brought back, in its method, by a monk who crossed to China, and conveyed by Ikkyū Sōjun.5

It is the salted nattō, too, whose name first appears in the record. In the mid-Heian Shin Sarugakuki, "shiokara-nattō" is set down as one of the "shōjin" (devotional) foods — held to be its first attestation.3 There is even a theory that the very name nattō derives from its being made in the nasho — the storehouse and kitchen of a Zen temple.3

Here, the stream quietly converges. The nattō we had followed as the lineage of bacteria, not kōji, touches — in the figure of temple nattō, and together with Zen — upon the kōji shore. Toward the shōjin cuisine of the next chapter, and the Zen traced in the first paper, The Source, this bean draws one more slender thread.

IV. Rivals in the Same Room

Temple-nattō making holds one difficulty. When the bean-kōji — soybeans fermented by kōji — is prepared in high summer, the maker stands always beside the danger of contamination by Bacillus (that is, nattō bacterium).6 One who would make nattō with kōji must carefully fend off the other, the nattō bacterium. The two watersheds of washoku — kōji and bacteria — are, before the same bean, within the same room, quietly contending.

And in the temple, too, there dwell resident microbes — what are called the "temple's own" microbes.6 This is the same as the "resident" microbes of the storehouse, seen in the second paper, The Basin. The microbes long settled in a place make a flavour belonging to that place alone. The terroir of architecture was not the storehouse's alone.

In time, by the Muromachi period, the thread-drawing nattō came to be widely known, and to be a food of daily life. The word "nattō," too, shifted to mean, first of all, the thread-drawing kind.3 The salted nattō, used as a seasoning, gave its place by degrees to miso. In a tale of the fifteenth century there even appears a personified warrior, "Nattō Tarō Itoshige."3 This thread-drawing bean became, in the warring age, the provisions at a commander's waist.3

Closing — The Other Watershed

Nattō is another stream, fallen outside the great river of kōji. The watershed of bacteria. Yet that slender stream was not isolated. In the figure of temple nattō it touched, with Zen, the kōji shore; in the figure of thread-drawing nattō it hung at the warrior's waist; and at some point it settled into the most familiar place of all at the Japanese table.

The two watersheds — kōji and bacteria — flow apart, yet together they form the one great river that is washoku. In the next chapter, we enter the very table that prized this bean as a precious source of protein — the flesh-forsaking shōjin cuisine.

Sources

This text is the second chapter of a white paper on washoku. The facts set down rest on the cited sources. The origins of nattō (the theory of a Yayoi accident, the theory bound up with Minamoto no Yoshiie, and others) are, all of them, theories and traditions, and not established historical fact — a point stated plainly in the text. That Ikkyū Sōjun spread the method of Daitoku-ji nattō likewise rests on temple tradition. This chapter treats nattō from the cultural and historical side, and does not enter into health effects.

Footnotes

  1. "Nattō Mame-chishiki," Mizkan (on the nattō bacterium essential to nattō being a kind of Bacillus subtilis, dwelling widely in air, dead grass and rice straw, with warm, moist rice straw an ideal home, and on it being a riddle of history when the Japanese first began to eat nattō). https://www.mizkan.co.jp/natto-information/mame/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. "The Origins of Nattō and Fermented Foods," Niigata Agro-Food University, President's Column (on miso, soy sauce, sake and vinegar arising as kōji mould and yeast act on grains and pulses, while the Bacillus — nattō bacterium — living in rice straw and the like makes nattō by its fermentation, and on nattō appearing in old documents in the mid-Heian period). https://nafu.ac.jp/magazine/column/entry-5918.html ↩

  3. "Nattō," Wikipedia (on there being two kinds of nattō — thread-drawing nattō fermented by nattō bacterium and salted nattō [temple nattō] fermented by kōji mould; on salted nattō being near, in making and flavour, to black miso and hishio; on "shiokara-nattō" in the mid-Heian Shin Sarugakuki being held its first attestation; on a theory that the name nattō derives from the temple nasho; on the thread-drawing nattō becoming daily fare in the Muromachi period so that "nattō" came to mean it first; on the personified warrior "Nattō Tarō Itoshige" appearing in a fifteenth-century tale; and on nattō becoming a commander's protein in the warring age). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B4%8D%E8%B1%86 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  4. "Tera-nattō," Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Illustrated Guide to Japan's Traditional Foods (on tera-nattō being steamed or boiled soybeans dusted with parched barley/wheat flour and kōji mould, steeped in brine, matured and dried; on it being fermented by kōji mould, not nattō bacterium, and so resembling miso and soy sauce; on its being black, non-thread-drawing grains near in taste to Chinese douchi and the Hatchō miso of Aichi; and on its transmission from China through Zen monks in the Kamakura period, prized in flesh- and fish-forsaking Zen temples as protein and a keeping food, with Ikkyū Sōjun said to have spread the method). https://www.maff.go.jp/j/keikaku/syokubunka/traditional-foods/menu/tera_natto.html ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. "Daitoku-ji Nattō," Wikipedia (on Daitoku-ji nattō being a salt-strong temple nattō fermented by kōji mould rather than nattō bacterium, the method said to have been brought back by a monk who crossed to China and conveyed to Daitoku-ji by Ikkyū Sōjun, also called kara-nattō, with Chinese douchi as its prototype). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E5%BE%B3%E5%AF%BA%E7%B4%8D%E8%B1%86 ↩

  6. "Daitoku-ji Nattō-making and Kōji Mould," Uchida Hanako (on the bean-kōji of temple nattō being hard to make in high summer for the high risk of contamination by Bacillus, and on temple nattō being made in the temple's nasho by microbes long settled there — the "temple's own"). https://note.com/hanako_uchida85/n/n86f4687de60e ↩ ↩2