My food adventure starts with a serving of gooey soybeans.
Natto is a traditional Japanese food made of fermented soybeans. It is usually, but not exclusively, eaten for breakfast, especially in the eastern parts of Japan (not too many people in Western Japan like Natto). It is easily made by ingredients very common in Japan: soy beans and rice straw.
Made by first soaking and washing the beans, then allowing them to ferment in rice straw (traditionally, although recent discoveries have allowed for different methods of fermentation), natto is touted as being one of the best health foods commonly available (to the average Japanese, that is).
Despite having stayed in Japan for over three years, it is only recently that I have taken notice of natto (or Natto-chan, as me and my friends like to call it).
What one first notices, or so they say, after opening a pack of natto is the smell. Various accounts have described it different ways. Richard Lloyd Parry, in his article, describes it as being akin to “a mixture of overripe Gorgonzola and putrefying hazelnuts” while Wikipedia attempts to describe the scent with a more subtle “ammoniacal smell”.
The smell, or rather friends’ accounts of the smell, is the main reason why I did not try natto until recently. Eventually, though, my curiosity got the better of me and, as I did not know much about natto then, headed to the one place I knew I could find it - the sushi shop.
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