Miso: Japanese Comfort Food

(Nov. 24, 2011) As soon as the mornings turned chilly enough to see your breath, my grandfather, who normally never lifted a chopstick in the kitchen, would commandeer the stove and scowl over a pot to make miso soup for our breakfast.

This was not the pale little bowl of cloudy broth and delicate cubes of tofu you get in Japanese restaurants. We were in upstate New York in a house that took forever to heat, so only something truly hearty was going to cut it. His face crumpled up like a paper bag while he chopped vegetables and stirred caramel-colored miso paste into the soup. They say a watched pot never boils, but Grandpa stared that pot down like a gangster until it was ready. My brother and I didn’t dare ask when it would be done.

Ginger-Miso Chicken JENNIFER FUMIKO CAHILL

GALLERY >

When it finally came to the table beside a hot bowl of white rice, it was heaven — salty, earthy and a little thick at the bottom. Your entire body warmed, finally unclenching as you tipped the wooden bowl to your mouth. Sometimes he would grunt and nod at us while we scooped at the hot rice and soft vegetables with our chopsticks. Sometimes he would mutter about Americans eating cold cereal for breakfast. “Baka,” he’d grumble, meaning foolish and/or crazy.

These days, it’s me grimacing into a pot. My family doesn’t love the angry cooking face, but they realize it’s genetic, and they’re willing to put up with it for the soup. Miso has that umami taste that satisfies in a way that no other broth does — even with nothing but a little seaweed, it’s food. For Japanese people, miso is the taste of home cooking, ofukuro-no-aji, mother’s taste, or, in my case, curmudgeon grandfather’s taste. It is part of what makes a Japanese meal complete, and it comes in infinite varieties, depending on what’s in season and what’s at hand. In Japan, it shows up in the most elegant restaurants, in public school lunches, and in chanko-nabe, the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink hot pots eaten by hungry sumo wrestlers in training. On the northernmost island of Japan, Hokkaido, where the sea actually freezes over in the winter, the locals favor miso ramen with a scoop of corn and a pat of butter. That’s right, a pat of butter. It’s very, very cold up there.

Miso paste is made from fermented soybeans and comes in three main varieties. Shiromiso (white) is mild and lighter brown, akamiso (red) is darker and stronger tasting, and awasemiso is a blend. All are low in calories and full of calcium, protein and isoflavones, which help cut the risk of some cancers. At the time, I thought my grandfather was just trying to keep me from eating Cap’n Crunch when he told me that eating miso soup kept people in Japan from getting radiation sickness after the bombing of Nagasaki. It turns out to be a pretty popular theory in Japan and elsewhere. But what I know for a fact is that miso soup is just the thing when you have a cold, a hangover, general tummy trouble or a broken heart. It’s also inexpensive and easy to make, even if you have any of the aforementioned maladies. The most basic miso broth can be made by boiling dashi, Japanese fish broth (which is surprisingly un-fishy), and then mixing in about a tablespoon of miso per cup of liquid. You can whip up your own dashi with Bonito flakes and kombu seaweed, or you can just use instant, like I do. Vegetarians can substitute with kombu dashi, which is just as tasty and made only from the seaweed. In general, miso soup is forgiving, and you can adjust it to your taste as you go. Adding hunks of pumpkin or thinly sliced pork will make it marvelous, but it’s still good with nothing but that sad half an onion in your fridge. Experiment, enjoy — and try not to frown.

Hearty Winter Vegetable Miso Soup

3 1/2 cups dashi (follow package instructions)

1/2 small onion, sliced

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