Washoku, the Fermented Cuisine

the current — the mouth

Prologue — The Watercourse on the Plate: Before Fire, Washoku Was a Cuisine of Microbes

序章 — 皿の上の水脈・和食は、火の前に菌の料理だった

Introduction — The Misconception of "a Cuisine of Fire"

What do we picture when we hear the word washoku? The honed work of the knife. The four seasons mirrored on a plate. The quiet balance of one soup and three dishes. Fresh ingredients served with as little handling as possible — washoku, we tend to think, is a "cuisine of subtraction."

That is not wrong. But for the subtraction to hold, there must be a deep foundation — something that remains on the tongue even after everything has been taken away. Strip the needless from an ingredient, and what remains at the very last? Who makes that single point?

Not fire. The microbe.

Before it was a cuisine of fire, washoku was a cuisine of microbes. This book is an attempt to trace that hidden foundation — fermentation — as a single watercourse.

I. What Lies Beneath the Dashi — The Discovery of 1908

At the centre of washoku's flavour, there is always umami. A fifth taste, belonging to none of the four long-known basics — sweet, salty, sour, bitter. It is this that sustains the depth of washoku.

This umami was captured in the language of science not so very long ago. In 1908, Ikeda Kikunae of Tokyo Imperial University traced, within the broth of kombu, that its true nature was glutamate, and named it umami.1 Here, for the first time, another taste — set apart from the four basics — was given a word.

Umami does more than enrich a flavour. It sustains the very character of washoku: the capacity to yield deep satisfaction without relying on animal fat. When washoku was honoured as a world heritage, one of the reasons given was precisely this — that, by the skilful use of umami, it had achieved a way of eating low in animal fat.2

And what draws this umami out are things that have passed through time and the hand of the microbe — kombu, and katsuobushi. At the bottom of the clear, unfathomable depth of dashi, there is fermentation.

II. Sa-Shi-Su-Se-So, or the Fermentation of the Kitchen

Umami does not dwell only in the dishes of special days. It lives in the most basic place of all — the everyday kitchen.

The foundation of Japanese seasoning is called, by a mnemonic, sa-shi-su-se-so: sugar, salt, vinegar, soy sauce, miso. Of these five, the three that lend depth and lingering resonance to a flavour — vinegar, soy sauce, miso — are all born of fermentation. Mirin, too, is of their company. Sugar and salt are not fermentation — let us keep that distinction precise. And yet what runs the core of flavour through a dish is, for the most part, the work of the microbe.

So the Japanese kitchen, at its very deepest, is held up by fermentation. Every day, without knowing it, we lift to our mouths a foundation of flavour built up over centuries of time.

III. Two Watersheds — Kōji, and Bacteria

But washoku's fermentation is not of one piece. There are, broadly, two watersheds.

One is kōji — the lineage of mould. The mainstream of this country's fermentation, beginning with hishio and running on to miso, soy sauce, mirin, and katsuobushi. Japan is often called "a civilisation of kōji."

But there is another stream: the lineage of bacteria. The nattō that draws its threads is born not of kōji but of the work of a bacterium, Bacillus subtilis. Narezushi, the distant ancestor of sushi, is likewise the work of lactic-acid bacteria. A microbe other than kōji, making another flavour.

This book follows both streams. The great river that is washoku is formed of two watersheds of differing character, joined together.

IV. From the Source, from the Basin, to the Mouth

This white paper is the third watercourse.

In the first paper, The Source, we traced why the Japanese feel and think as they do — the very wellspring of that spirit. In the second, The Basin, we saw how that spirit gathered into the brewing of one piece of ground: Hekinan. And here, at The Mouth, the watercourse at last comes out onto the plate — fermentation, taking the form of the table called washoku, entering the human mouth, and reaching, at last, the world.

What is striking is this: when washoku was recognised by the world, the core of the praise was placed on "the Japanese heart that reveres nature."2 That is none other than the very spirit traced by the first paper, The Source. The water, flowing down to the mouth, meets the source once more just before it reaches the sea. The story of food, having gone round, returns to the story of the heart.

Closing — The Stream We Are About to Trace

From here, we will go upstream, and down again. We will trace our way back to hishio, the ancestor of every fermented seasoning (Chapter One); enter the lineage of nattō, which is not kōji (Chapter Two); visit the flesh-forsaking table of shōjin (Chapter Three); touch the fermented origin of sushi (Chapter Four); stand witness to the discovery of dashi and umami (Chapter Five); and arrive at last at the sa-shi-su-se-so of the kitchen (Chapter Six). Then, in the epilogue, we come out at the day in 2013 when the world acknowledged washoku as a heritage of humankind.

It is a journey along the unseen watercourse on the plate. That beneath the hand holding the chopsticks, two thousand years are flowing — this we shall confirm, one chapter at a time.

Sources

This text is the prologue of a white paper on washoku. The discovery of umami and the UNESCO inscription of washoku are given with sources. The fermentation mechanisms of sa-shi-su-se-so, katsuobushi, nattō, and sushi are set out in detail, with sources, in their respective chapters. Among the "sa-shi-su-se-so," sugar and salt are not products of fermentation; what is born of fermentation are vinegar, soy sauce, and miso (and mirin) — a point stated plainly in the text.

Footnotes

  1. "Ikeda Kikunae," Umami Information Center (on Ikeda Kikunae of Tokyo Imperial University extracting glutamate from kombu broth in 1908 and naming, as a fifth taste distinct from the four basics of sweet, salty, sour and bitter, "umami"). https://www.umamiinfo.jp/ikedakikunae/ / "The Path from the Discovery of Umami to Its Commercialisation — The Story of Ikeda Kikunae," Ajinomoto Group (on the 1908 crystallisation of glutamate from kombu broth and the naming of "umami"). https://story.ajinomoto.co.jp/history/020.html ↩

  2. "Washoku Is Inscribed on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage," Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (on "Washoku, Traditional Dietary Cultures of the Japanese" being inscribed in 2013 as an expression of the Japanese spirit of "respect for nature," and on its having achieved a diet low in animal fat through the skilful use of umami). https://www.maff.go.jp/j/keikaku/syokubunka/ich/ / "Washoku Inscribed on UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage," nippon.com (on the inscription decided on 4 December 2013). https://www.nippon.com/ja/behind/l00052/ ↩ ↩2