I can smell the narazuke fermentation room before I see it. The malty scent of vegetables mingling with bacteria is a signpost pointing toward the facility where Soshin Nishida and his family age pickled white melon. I inhale deeply, taking in the aromas, and Nishida beams. “It smells good, doesn’t it?”

Tourists flock to Nara to pose for selfies with the Japanese city’s famous free-roaming deer, but the historic prefecture is otherwise largely overlooked as a destination, eclipsed by Kyoto’s famed temples and Osaka’s glitz. Yet in the 8th century, Nara was Japan’s first permanent capital, among the easternmost stops on the ancient Silk Road, and a key entry point for edible imports. From tea drinking to persimmon cultivation, the city became a fountainhead of Japanese food culture.

Today, many of Japan’s culinary crafts are fading, replaced by machine-made shortcuts or abandoned entirely. Yet in Nara, where many of these skills have their earliest roots in the country, a handful of artisans are devoted to preserving these ancient techniques—and reimagining them for the future.

The Pickle Maker: Soshin Nishida

Brewing sake leaves behind a precious byproduct: sake lees, a white, paste-like residue with a mildly sweet and fruity taste. Not to be wasted, the ingredient is a base for countless foods in Japanese cuisine: amazake (a sweet fermented rice drink), marinades, and pickles, including a centuries-old Nara specialty, narazuke.

Soshin Nishida, who is part of the 11th generation in his family to produce the pickled white melon, often spends much of the day with his hands deep in tubs of narazuke. (He jokes that the peptide-rich sake lees, used as a cosmetic ingredient in Japan, is his secret to youthful-looking hands.) He shows me around his family-owned brand Ashibiyahonpo’s aging facility, explaining how they use sake lees and salt to season and preserve the melon, which turns savory as it ferments for at least three years, or up to five. The crunchy pickles are tangy and umami—an ideal accompaniment to porridge or sushi.

Before refrigeration, narazuke was a means of preservation. In 2018, to reimagine its potential, Nishida’s family opened the pizzeria Cervo Bianco, which offers a narazuke-topped four-cheese pizza and pickle-flavored gelato. “Narazuke can be more than just a pairing,” Nishida insists. “I don’t want future generations to forget its nutritional legacy.”

The Tea Cultivator: Junichi Uekubo

To roll his tea by hand, Junichi Uekubo spends up to eight hours a day hunched over a washi paper-lined table laden with leaves. A heater beneath the table helps dry the delicate greens, so he must keep them in constant motion, rapidly sliding his palms back and forth across the surface to prevent the tea from burning.

The resulting needles of temomicha, or hand-rolled tea, Uekubo says, are worth every bit of effort. Only a tiny fraction of the green tea produced in Japan is still hand-rolled, a process that breaks down the cells and releases the leaves’ fragrance and flavor. Uekubo’s tastes unlike any tea I’ve had before—savory, with undertones of dashi. “I use crab, herring, and oysters as fertilizer, to heighten that umami flavor,” he tells me.

As a child, Uekubo, a seventh-generation tea cultivator, was unsure whether he wanted to take over the family business, Tea Uekubo. But one whiff of its prized temomicha convinced him: “I’m the first one who gets to taste it,” he says. “That’s the best moment. I want to share those special emotions that tea can arouse.”

The Soybean Grower and The Miso Maker: Masahiro Kondo and Hiroyuki Katagami

Soybeans play a critical role in Japanese cuisine—in soy sauce, tofu, miso, and beyond—but more than 90 percent of them used in Japan are grown elsewhere. In recent decades, the nation’s soybean cultivation has been steadily declining, due to limited land, unfavorable weather, aging farmers, and the comparative reliability of imported North American-grown beans.

The O-deppo variety, once prominent in Nara, is now nearly extinct. When tofu maker and Nara native Masahiro Kondo heard that the breed once grew taller than the average soybean plant, with double the yield and a greater depth of flavor from its unusually high sucrose content, he decided to hunt down the heirloom seeds and revive the crop.

At first, Hiroyuki Katagami, owner of Katagami Shoyu, was one of the few local soy sauce makers willing to take a chance on the unfamiliar bean. But the resurrected legumes stood up to their long-forgotten reputation. I sample a taste of Katagami’s miso, and it is smooth and creamy, the ingredient’s characteristic salty, funky flavor punctuated by a distinct sweetness. “Soybeans used to be a pride of Nara,” says Kondo, who also uses the beans at his company Miki Tofu. “We’re slowly bringing back the concept of farm-to-table soybeans.”

The Persimmon Preserver: Kazuhiro Ishii

In Japan, if you throw away something that could still be useful, you might hear the term “mottainai.” Loosely translating to “what a waste,” it’s often uttered as a reminder to reuse and recycle.

“We are nature worshippers,” says Kazuhiro Ishii, the quiet and cerebral third-generation owner of Ishii Co., who attributes Japanese people’s deep respect for the environment to the country’s indigenous Shinto religion. That ethos of conservation was what motivated his grandfather, Isao Ishii, to develop the family brand’s first persimmon-based product in 1981. Scuffed or otherwise imperfect persimmons couldn’t be sold (“Japanese people are perfectionists,” Kazuhiro says), but they could be transformed into treats like hoshigaki (dried Hachiya persimmons) and kyoshu no kaki (dried Horenbo persimmons filled with sweet chestnut paste). The family created other products as well: a sweet-tart vinegar made from the fruit’s syrupy flesh, and a wheaty brewed tea and matcha-like powder from the dried leaves.

Persimmons, or kaki in Japanese, have been cultivated in Nara for centuries. There’s an ancient custom of writing a love note on a persimmon leaf, then releasing it into a body of water. One of the city’s famed delicacies is kakinoha-zushi, a pressed sushi made by wrapping marinated fish in the fruit’s leaves—when I unwrap one in a local shop, I feel like I’m opening a gift.

Today, Kazuhiro continues to research new ways to make the most of persimmons, like turning the skin into natural food coloring and the juice into sweetener. “I want to continue making farmers happy by buying their damaged fruit,” he tells me, “so we can keep passing on Nara’s kaki culture.”

The Soy Sauce Brewer: Osamu Yoshikawa

Balancing on a plank atop a six-foot-tall wooden barrel, sixth-generation soy sauce producer Osamu Yoshikawa churns a thick mixture of soybeans, wheat, koji mold, and saltwater. He invites me to give it a try, and I learn just how labor-intensive this job truly is. But Yoshikawa knows it’s worthwhile. The finished condiment will be full-bodied, complex, and a tad sweet: liquid umami.

Today, less than 1 percent of the soy sauce made in Japan is produced this way, aging from six months to three years in bamboo and cedar barrels called kioke. The liquid darkens and the flavor intensifies as the brew matures; microorganisms, flourishing in the wood’s crevices, create a distinct flavor exclusive to the maker. It can take two weeks to fashion a new kioke; Yoshikawa estimates only around 3,500 of the vessels still exist, most replaced by steel vats. But built with care, the barrels can last as long as 200 years; many of the ones at Inoue Honten, his bean-to-bottle soy sauce company, have been in continuous use for decades.

“Barrel-aging soy sauce is a fast-fading art,” says Yoshikawa, flanked by his two sons and daughter-in-law who will eventually take over the business. “But the taste of making it this way is unparalleled.” His younger son, Ryo Yoshikawa, grins broadly and flexes his biceps, as if to say, “We won’t let our father down.”

Recipes

Leftover Green Tea Leaf Salad

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Inarizushi (Rice-Filled Tofu Pockets)

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Miso Clam Chowder

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Amazake, Apple, and Pineapple Smoothie

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The post Meet the Makers Preserving the Past in Nara appeared first on Saveur.

As the sun begins to set over the Himalayan peaks in the distance, Avinash Yadav sits cross-legged in a makeshift outdoor kitchen, crushing stark green leaves in his palm. He tosses them into chickpea flour, mashing the mixture with finely chopped onions, potatoes, and water to make a rich, almost golden batter. Nearby, villagers of Kyark start to slink to their homes. Some herd their livestock into pens to avoid prowling leopards, a common sight in Devbhoomi, the mountainous region in Northern India known as the Land of the Gods. When Yadav finishes preparing his batter, he’ll form it into small portions and gently drop them in hot oil shimmering over a mud stove. He’s making a fritter known as “bhang ke pakora,” with a key ingredient: cannabis.

Cannabis use has exploded into a multibillion-dollar industry as the drug is increasingly legalized—across the United States and the world. As its acceptance has grown, so have the forms for consuming it, from laced brownies and candy to teas and tinctures. Some high-end restaurants have begun offering multicourse meals with marijuana pairings. But in rugged Himalayan valleys, “bhang,” an edible paste derived from cannabis leaves, has been a fixture for centuries, with roots in Hindu scripture. Even though smoking marijuana is illegal in India, you can find bhang in snacks and soups, smoothies, and even wedding treats. “I didn’t make these bhang pakoras to get high,” said Yadav, a 33-year-old professional driver. “It’s a tribute to my Bholanath,” a reference to Shiva, a principal deity of Hinduism. The mythology of bhang varies. One widely cited legend depicts Shiva drinking poison so that others could obtain immortality. As the poison burns his throat, the god eats bhang to dull its effects. Other religious texts depict Shiva consuming bhang to master his senses for meditation.

Atharva Veda, a sacred Hindu scripture, classifies cannabis as one of the five most sacred plants on Earth. Now, it’s common to see the ingredient eaten throughout India during big religious and cultural festivals. Some still use it for meditation; others consume it for its cooling properties. In Northern India, bhang is churned into a wildly popular milkshake called thandai. Known for its mix of earthy and flowery notes and a creamy sweetness, it’s sometimes flavored with coconut and cardamom. 

In Uttarakhand, the state where Avinash Yadav lives, cannabis is a staple. It grows wild in the region, popping up in backyards and on the outskirts of farm plots. In 2017, the state approved cultivation of the crop, mostly to produce hemp for textile making. One recent afternoon in Kyark, Pinky Devi prepared lunch, roasting cannabis seeds on a makeshift stove. She ground the roasted seeds with fresh mint, ginger, cilantro, green chiles, tomato, lemon juice, and salt. The result was a fibrous green and tangy dip, bhang ki chutney. “You just take one spoon of the chutney with the madua roti,” Devi explained, preparing a plate for her husband that included a millet flatbread.

Another popular dish in the region, jhol, is a buttermilk-based soup containing red chiles and cannabis without any of its intoxicating properties. Its mildly sour, lactic notes temper its spicy heat, and go well with steaming rice. “The illegal taboo around cannabis makes little sense, especially in a country where hundreds of millions know about its religious and medical significance,” says Abhishek Bahuguna, a priest in Uttarakhand.

The priest’s argument has weight. Bhang is a fairly common sight, even beyond the picturesque Himalayan valleys. Bhang-infused tea and cookies can be found in organic shops, including some that are licensed by the government. And not everyone avoids its intoxicating effects: During some festivals, people will make bhang samosas, often referring to the fried pastries as “buzzy” treats. But unlike the neighboring hill state of Himachal Pradesh, which has gained notoriety as a destination for getting high, Uttarakhand has shunned that kind of attraction. Instead, many residents have preserved bhang as a core part of their cuisine, all in the name of devotion. That is to say, the Land of the Gods has claimed a controversial plant and given it a divine place on the local platter. 

The post In Remote Northern India, Weed Isn’t a Trend—It’s a Way of Life appeared first on Saveur.

If you hope to live a long life, chances are you’ve researched, or at least speculated, what makes Japan’s average life expectancy the highest in the world. Many research findings have connected Japanese longevity to certain food and drink staples, from fish to green tea. Among the hailed ingredients is a slippery, slimy one that’s beloved in Japanese culture but has yet to make its way into the hearts and minds of the global masses: natto, an all-around miraculous food.

Natto is made by steaming soybeans, then inoculating them with a microorganism known as Bacillus subtilis, explains Ann Yonetani, a microbiologist and founder of the natto company NYrture. As a result of fermentation, the soybeans develop a sticky, stringy texture and a nutty, pungent flavor, somewhat reminiscent of aged cheese.

My dad, who spent time working in Japan and speaks the language, instilled in me an early appreciation for natto. At breakfast, he’d scoop a little into my bowl of porridge, or slide a jar toward me encouragingly as I ate my scrambled eggs—often while remarking, “it’s really good for you”—before gobbling up a helping of his own. At first I merely tolerated natto’s presence in my bowl, but eventually, I missed its funky aroma whenever it wasn’t on the table.

If no one ever coaxed you to acquire a taste for natto when you were a kid, it’s not too late to acquire it now—and it turns out there are lots of good reasons to do so. It’s no secret that fermented foods are advantageous for gut health, but one way Bacillus subtilis differs from the bacteria in many other fermented items is that it has the ability to form spores. “The spores are able to survive the extremely acidic conditions of the stomach and make it through your digestive system,” explains Yonetani. These beneficial microbes can then join the community of bacteria that populate the intestines, where they contribute to a more diverse gut microbiome, which in turn supports healthier immune and digestive function.

Natto also contains more Vitamin K2 than any other known food source, notes Yonetani, explaining that the micronutrient is critical for calcium metabolism. Studies published in The Journal of Nutrition associate natto consumption with lower risk of osteoporotic fracture and bone density loss. It could support heart health, too, as eating fermented soy products like natto and miso is also linked to lower risk of death by cardiovascular disease, according to a study in The BMJ (British Medical Journal). “Really good for you” indeed.

In Japan, many people wake up to fermented soybeans. “It’s really very popular as a breakfast dish,” says Jane Matsumoto, director of culinary arts at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (JACCC). Perhaps that’s because natto is exceptionally filling, with more than 30 grams of protein in a single cup—something Yonetani says she especially appreciated after transitioning to a vegan lifestyle. Plus, natto is easy to prepare: simply scoop the savory ingredient right out of the jar and dollop it over rice, or stir some into a bowl of miso soup, and breakfast is served.

Those curious about natto’s health-boosting benefits can now find it in a variety of forms—from natto powder to capsules of isolated nattokinase (an enzyme found in natto that’s especially linked to cardiovascular benefits)—but there’s nothing like enjoying Japan’s gift to nutrition in all its funky, slippery glory.“Natto is an amazingly simple, two-ingredient food that produces something so unique, with marvelous flavor and texture,” says Yonetani.

In the U.S., look for natto in Japanese markets and Asian grocers, and on e-commerce retailers like Umamicart. The ingredient typically comes with little packets of karashi (Japanese mustard) and a soy sauce-based seasoning for stirring into the beans before eating, but there are myriad ways to enjoy the ingredient. “I think natto is a lot more versatile than the traditional Japanese applications,” Matsumoto notes.

Here are some different techniques for integrating natto into your next meal:

Enjoy natto with rice.

An easy, popular preparation I often whip up quickly for breakfast is natto gohan, which calls for dolloping the fermented beans over steamed rice, then garnishing with toppings like scallion and tsukemono (a variety of Japanese pickles). But don’t stop there. Chris Ono, the chef behind the JACCC’s restaurant concept Hansei, likes eating natto with yaki onigiri, or grilled rice balls, which have a crispy texture that contrasts delightfully with the gooey natto. “I break the onigiri open and put the natto in the middle,” he says. Ono also rolls the soybeans into maki with scallion and takuan, or pickled daikon—a sweet, crunchy addition that helps “cut the intensity” of the natto, he adds.

Pair natto with similarly viscous ingredients.

In Japanese cuisine, natto often shows up alongside other viscous foods (Japanese language describes that sticky texture as neba neba). “I call it slime on slime,” says Matsumoto, who loves pairing natto with okra. Grated yamaimo, or mountain yam, is another terrific partner for the ingredient—the sticky combination makes a tasty topping for any rib-sticking bowl of carbs, be it noodles, rice, or porridge. Raw egg, a typical garnish for natto gohan, also makes for a satisfyingly slurpable concoction.

Toss natto into a stir-fry.

The next time you whip up a stir-fry, try tossing in some fermented soybeans. “Think of natto as a main protein,” suggests Ono, pointing out the ingredient’s savory flavor and meaty chew. Earthy ingredients like mushrooms marry nicely with the nutty quality of natto, he says, while alliums like garlic and onion enhance its umaminess. Just be sure to add the natto at the very end of the cooking process, Yonetani advises, so you don’t apply too much heat, which could kill those friendly bacteria.

Complement natto with your favorite cheese.

Anything you might top with cheese, you can probably consider adding some natto to it, says Yonetani, pointing out that the two are similarly pungent. She regularly mixes them in dishes like grilled-cheese sandwiches, scrambled eggs, and pasta—and swears that Parmesan cheese is an especially exquisite complement for natto (Japanese and Italian seasonings are known to be harmonious, after all). If it’s hard for you to get past the beans’ stringy quality, consider folding some into a cheesy, velvety dip. The soybeans add crunch, while their slippery texture incorporates subtly into the creaminess of the dip.

Add sweetness and spice.

Seasonings for natto aren’t limited to karashi and soy sauce. Got some sriracha, Tabasco, salsa macha, or chile crisp on hand? I love drizzling any of these fiery condiments over top to heat things up. Ono recommends sprinkling in shichimi togarashi (a seven-spice mix that includes red chiles, sansho pepper, dried orange peel, and sesame seeds) or stirring in yuzu kosho (a fermented condiment made with chiles and yuzu) to jazz up your natto with a citrusy, spicy boost. Or, follow Yonetani’s suggestion and experiment with stirring in different salad dressings. From sweet honey mustard to tart balsamic vinaigrette, the flavor profiles you can create are endless.

Recipe

Natto Gohan

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The post There’s a Lot to Love About Natto appeared first on Saveur.

Rise & Dine is a SAVEUR column by Senior Editor Megan Zhang, an aspiring early riser who seeks to explore the culture of mornings and rituals of breakfast around the world.

When I first started trying to build a short meditation routine into my mornings, I quickly learned that it clashed with another, already entrenched, daily habit. The quick onset of a caffeine jolt from a cup of coffee, effective as it was at jump-starting my energy, interrupted the calm stillness I was attempting to embody. For a novice meditator like me, quieting the mind was a hard enough task, and it didn’t help that this erratic fidgetiness left little room for reflection.

But on a recent trip to Kyoto, I learned that meditation and caffeine have been intertwined in Japanese monastic culture for centuries—with tea at the heart of it.

To learn more about the art of mindfulness, I spent a stormy afternoon at Shunkoin Temple, a centuries-old Zen Buddhist site, one of dozens in the sprawling, pine tree-lined Myōshin-ji temple complex. Reverend Takafumi Kawakami, the head priest, greeted guests with a tea ceremony and cups of cold-brewed sencha, a cooling balm perfect for the hot, muggy weather. As we sipped, he explained that the combination of tea’s stimulating caffeine and calming L-theanine (the latter helps mitigate the excitatory effects of the former, and their union can help bolster attention and curb distraction)assists the pursuit of “mindful tranquility and self-exploration.” After we set down our empty cups, Kawakami led us through a meditation practice. Seated cross-legged on the floor in that serene temple, I felt a mild lift in energy from the sencha—and was surprised that my thoughts wandered less than usual, and that my mind refocused quickly when they did.

It was Buddhist monks who first brought tea from China to Japan around the 8th and 9th centuries and began disseminating tea culture, explained historian Robert Hellyer, author of Green with Milk and Sugar: When Japan Filled America’s Tea Cups. For centuries, it remained a scarce and precious commodity. “On imperial land and in Buddhist monasteries—those were really the only two places, at this early stage, where tea was being grown,” he noted. While tea was offered to the Buddha and the deceased during monastic ceremonies, it had another practical application for monks themselves. “It kept them clear-headed,” added historian and University of Hawai’i professor Nancy K. Stalker, explaining that monks would often turn to tea for a little invigoration ahead of their meditative and ceremonial practices.

Tea eventually spread to the societal elite, and finally to the masses. “Starting the morning with tea is, I think for many, a moment to relax and focus your thoughts for the day ahead,” said Yasunori Iwata, a chef based in Nara, a city about an hour south of Kyoto. Though tea-loving tourists tend to flock to nearby Uji, which is regarded for its matcha production, Nara, as Japan’s first permanent capital, has one of the country’s longest traditions of tea cultivation. The city also has an enduring morning tradition of not only drinking tea but eating it, too.

As Iwata watched a pot of water simmering on the stove, he explained that, according to local lore, a tea porridge called chagayu became widespread in Nara as a way to stretch leftover rice, and it eventually became a hallmark of the local cuisine. Though the dish is similar to ochazuke, a simple porridge common throughout Japan that requires pouring brewed tea over cooked rice, chagayu calls for the cook to simmer cooked rice in tea on a stovetop—a vital step that more potently perfumes the grains with tea aroma.

As the chef gently stirred the hojicha, a roasted green tea, I peered over his shoulder and breathed in the smoky warmth of the steam. There was something almost meditative about getting lost in this peaceful, repetitive motion—it invited me to notice the delicate scent of the leaves, and the soothing warmth ascending from the water. My mind emptied as I watched the grains swirling slowly in the pot. “Notice when the texture starts to change,” said Iwata, quietly summoning me from my trance as he pointed out the slight thickening of the rice. He ladled the chagayu into a small bowl with some umeboshi, or pickled plums, on the side. After several nights of restless, jet-lagged sleep, the light flavors and gentle aromatherapy were restorative. 

Though I’ve cooked and eaten countless rice porridges, none had delivered a subtle energy boost and undertow of earthy fragrance quite like chagayu. But many Nara visitors likely won’t encounter it, local tour guide Atsuo Itsuji told me, as the breakfast is usually simply prepared at home. Luckily for fans of the dish, it’s easy to recreate.

If coffee is the alarm clock that stuns the drinker awake, tea is the sunlight streaming in through the window, gently nudging one toward wakefulness. As I learned in Nara, even the process of preparing it creates space for a bit of slowness. And with a warm bowl of chagayu, we might have our meditation and eat it, too.

Recipe

Chagayu (Tea Porridge)

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The post Seeking Mindfulness in a Bowl of Japanese Tea Porridge appeared first on Saveur.

Bangkok smells like exhaust mixed with noodle stalls, the gasoline-tinged smoke of tuk-tuks mingling with simmering meat, dried spices, and herbs. Even if it’s not exactly your thing, the Thai capital’s signature scent is pretty much impossible to avoid. It’s also indicative of Bangkok’s relentless energy—and its obsession with food. 

Yet the city isn’t only grilled meats and stir-fried noodles. Although street food gets all the press, there are countless ways to eat in this sprawling metropolis of 10 million people. Today, air-conditioned malls have as much pull as street stalls. And for an increasing number of Thais, fancy restaurants or reservations-only supperclubs are now attainable indulgences, not remote fantasies. 

Since moving to Bangkok 1999, I’ve watched the city blossom into an ever more vibrant—and trendy—food town. Many of my favorite haunts are decades-old standbys, while others are newcomers that only a plugged-in local would know about. If you follow my recommendations, you’ll leave the city with a good sense of the local food scene—yes, there’s a must-stop street stall in the mix, but there’s also a restaurant housed in a 19th-century home and a chichi fine dining spot offering sophisticated wine pairings.

Kuaytiaw Khua Kai Suan Mali

260 Soi Thewi Worayat 
+66 82 056 6999

This hard-to-locate stall down a back alleyway specializes in a single dish: kuaytiaw khua kai, a salty, smoky tangle of wide rice noodles wok-fried with chicken, preserved squid, and egg. The ingredients are nothing out of the ordinary, but the fact that the dish is fried in lard over coals lends it a luxurious richness. The plastic stools, the wok smoke, and the sweat pouring down your forehead is bucket list Bangkok.

Aksorn

1266 Thanon Charoen Krung
+66 2 116 8662

With the city’s residents earning more money and wealthy foreigners piling in, fine dining is having a moment in Bangkok. Yet Aksorn, despite its price point, manages to feel homey, thanks to food served family style in delicate, floral-themed crockery. Australian chef David Thompson has dusted off old Thai cookbooks and unearthed recipes that haven’t seen the light of day in decades. With dishes more subtle in flavor and heat than most you’ll find in Bangkok—think Chinese ash gourd steamed with salted fish and pork, or a relish of santol and cashew nuts—the restaurant will make you question everything you thought you knew about Thai food. 

Khun Yah Cuisine

89/2 Thanon Tri Mit
+66 2 222 0912

Khun Yah Cuisine, hiding in the compound of a Buddhist temple, is one of a dwindling number of old-school Bangkok-style curry stalls remaining in the city. The format is straightforward: Curries, stir-fries, soups, and Thai-style dips are made in advance and displayed in stainless steel bowls and trays. Your job is to point to the one that looks the tastiest—their pleasantly mild green curry, perhaps, or the “one plate” special—so the vendor knows what to ladle over a plate of rice before thrusting it your way. 

Som Tam Jay So

Soi Phiphat 2
+66 85 999 4225

Bangkok experienced a population boom in the 1980s and ‘90s as tens of thousands of rural northeasterners flocked to the city to work as laborers. Over the subsequent decades, stalls and restaurants specializing in that region’s unabashedly spicy, often grilled dishes have become integral to the Bangkok repertoire. Jay So, a chaotic shack at the edge of Bangkok’s financial district, is typical of the genre. Obligatory here is som tam, a tart, spicy, and funky salad of green papaya strips bruised in a mortar with chiles, lime juice and fish sauce. They also make fantastic grilled chicken wings and a memorably smoky herb-stuffed catfish.

Khao Tom 100 Pi

547 Thanon Phlap Phla Chai
+66 2 223 9592

In many ways, Bangkok is a Chinese city, a fact often reflected in its cuisine. One of the most beloved Chinese-style restaurant types is khaao tom kui, with kitchens consisting of a couple of wok burners and a bunch of trays piled high with meat, seafood, and vegetables. At this popular establishment, point to whatever looks good—some clams, maybe, or a clutch of Chinese kale—and a cook will fry it up to order alongside a bowl of soupy rice. As its name suggests, the Chinatown restaurant has supposedly been around for a century, and generations of locals know, seemingly instinctively, to order the savory minced pork stir-fried with Chinese olive, or the spicy, tart dried fish salad.

Bangkok Bold Kitchen

Basement, Central Embassy, 1031 Thanon Phloen Chit
+66 91 424 4292

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Bangkok residents bemoan the city’s “Singaporization,” but that doesn’t make malls any less a part of the city’s cultural—and culinary—landscape. Head to just about any food court, and you can find a cheap, tasty meal, but at Bangkok Bold Kitchen, the food tastes straight out of a rural home. Try the crab and pumpkin stir-fry, given a fragrant boost by the addition of lemon basil, and be sure to sample the rich, lon, or central Thai-style soupy dip, that brings together coconut milk and salted duck egg.

Ban Wannakovit

64 Thanon Tanao
+66 81 922 6611

You may not get the chance to eat in a Thai home, but a meal at Ban Wannakovit is the next best thing. Not only does it occupy a renovated 19th-century Ratanakosin Style home, but it also grants access to old-timey dishes seldom found on restaurant menus, such as rice tossed with shrimp paste and garnished with green mango, thin strips of omelet, and pork braised in palm sugar. I often spring for the thin, round rice noodles drizzled with coconut milk and topped with fish dumplings, fresh chile, and slices of pineapple.

Yen Ta Fo J.C.

Soi Phiphat 2
+66 97 263 5456

You can’t leave Bangkok without slurping down some noodles, and the city’s most beloved bowl is yen ta fo. It consists of rice noodles, crunchy greens, and a variety of pork, shrimp and fished-based dumplings, all bobbing in a broth tinged red from the fermented tofu. The dish exemplifies the slightly sweet, overtly Chinese, seafood-loving palate of the city. Yen Ta Fo J.C. serves a terrific rendition—just beware of the owner, Bangkok’s de facto Soup Nazi, who’s known for complicated seating and ordering rules only clear to him.

Samrub Samrub Thai

39/11 Soi Yommarat
+66 99 651 7292

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I don’t entirely understand how Thai Chef Prin Polsuk manages to run a restaurant, as he appears to spend most of his time combing Thailand’s countryside for dishes and ingredients. The ever-changing menu at Samrub Samrub Thai reflects this relentless curiosity, and past themes have featured the sugary, meat-forward dishes of Thailand’s Muslim deep south, and the little-known cuisine of the communities living along the banks of the Mekong River. Unfolding in a small, intimate space, the result is an experience in which Prin is less chef and more culinary tour guide, escorting diners on a journey through Thailand’s fascinating gastronomic landscape.

Haawm

290 Soi 25, Thanon On Nut
Reservations via Instagram

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Chefs and food writers alike can’t stop singing the praises of Haawm, “a speakeasy with reservations,” in the words of one friend (even if supperclub is the proper term). The raucous, informal meals take place in chef Dylan Eitharong’s suburban Bangkok shophouse, where dishes such as Pattani-style white curry with beef and pickled grilled green chiles draw on both influences from every corner of Thailand and a certain American playfulness informed by the chef’s background. This borderless approach is propelling Bangkok’s food scene to its next stop, wherever that may be.

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This feature was originally published in our May/June 1998 issue.

Miso, that elemental paste of fermented soybeans, was once made in most Japanese homes, both in the cities and in the countryside. Recipes and procedures were well-guarded family secrets, the process took months, and no two batches of miso would ever taste the same—due to varying proportions of salt to soybeans, the common (but not essential) addition of rice or barley, and the length of fermentation. Even the soil in which the soybeans were grown could make a difference. Miso, as a result, became a source of great family pride. “Temae miso desuga,” one would say—meaning “I don’t want to boast about my miso, but…”

Though my own family did not make miso at home, it was indispensable to us nonetheless, as it was (and still is) in all Japanese kitchens. Misoshiru, or miso soup, is served almost every day—either with rice and pickled vegetables as a complete (if frugal) meal, or on its own as the standard breakfast. I use miso as a base for all kinds of sauces and dressings, and like many people, I believe it to be essential when braising or grilling fish, especially strong-flavored mackerel. And I wouldn’t cook beef without it.

Like tofu (soybean curd), miso is high in protein. Unlike tofu, whose greatest selling point is its ability to soak up the flavor of whatever else it is cooked with, each kind of miso has its own rich, complex flavor and its own purpose—whether it be to enrich a broth or stock, to season a sauce or marinade, to work as a pickling agent or preservative, or to stand on its own, spread on vegetables or layered into casseroles. Miso is healthy and versatile and simple in composition, but its real magic comes from the fact that it has the ability to transform—even to elevate—other ingredients onto a different level altogether. That’s what puts miso at the heart of Japanese cuisine.

Unfortunately, miso can be confusing for anyone who hasn’t grown up with it. The problem is twofold: First of all, it has no Western counterpart, either in composition or versatility, so the average non-Japanese cook has no frame of reference for it. The second problem is that there are several types of miso—the three basic categories being komemiso, mugimiso, and mamemiso (rice, barley, and straight soybean miso, respectively), and each encompasses several different varieties.

Japan’s miso tradition began around the seventh century a.d. Miso seems to have evolved from both chiang, a soybean paste that Buddhist monks brought from China, and jang, a similar soybean product that Korean farmers introduced into Japan’s countryside. With the exception of a rustic farmhouse version, miso was made just for the nobility (and solely by monks) until the tenth century. Gradually, soybeans became more widely available, and the making of miso slowly spread to all levels of society. Though it had reached staple status throughout Japan by the 1300s, miso continued to be produced at home until the 18th century, when samurai families, once employed by now-disenfranchised feudal lords, founded the miso-making industry.

Today, much of the miso made in Japan comes from giant factories. According to Eddie Fujima, a consultant for Marubeni America Corporation in New York City—which exports American soybeans to Japan—some 50 of Japan’s 1,355 miso makers control 90 percent of the market. Most of these use soybeans imported either from the United States or from China. Miso connoisseurs, who are adept at detecting an inferior product, seek out small miso breweries—the kind that are painstakingly preserving old-fashioned techniques and regional miso styles.

Late last year, I took the train from Tokyo to Honjō, about 75 mils northwest of the city. From there, I caught a bus to the tiny village of Kamiizumi-mura, and specifically to Yamaki Jōzō—a miso factory that functions, at least in part, i the traditionally manner. (Yama means “mountain,” as in a mountain of soybeans or miso; ki stands for Kitani, the name of the family that owns the company; and jōzō means “brewery.”) Kazuhiko Morita, the brewery’s director, neatly attired in a starched white work jacket and white hat, greeted me with a deep bow and a smile at the brewery door. Immediately, he launched into a passionate explanation of the company’s history, informing me that it had been making miso (the three basic types as well as a few specialty styles), soy sauce, and tofu since 1902. In the 1960s, the organization had switched to using raw materials most of them grown domestically. And though the company’s philosophy had remained traditional, he added, production had become partially automated in the mid-1980s. When he stopped to take a breath, I interrupted and asked to se how miso is made. “Okay!” he agreed, and we were off.

Yamaki is a small brewery—its annual output is about 400 tons—and only one type of miso is made at a time. I turned up on the third day of akamiso (red miso, which in this case refers to a type of rice miso) production. On the first day, rice had been soaked, steamed, and then inoculated with kōjikin, a spore of mold (Aspergillus oryzae) that triggers fermentation. It had been fermenting for about 48 hours since then, producing enzymes that would later help break down the soybeans.

The first room we visited was devoted to the soybeans. We stood on a high platform along one of two gigantic steel pressure cookers. When we opened the lid, a vigorous swirl of steam filled the entire room. Once the steam, had evaporated, my guide scooped up a lovely. yellow mound of soft soybeans. “cooked beans should be cooled quickly,” he explained, as he pushed a few burtons commanding the cooker to turn and empty all 5,300 pounds of its contents onto a conveyor belt. Next, we peeked into the hot, humid rice room, where eight inches of fuzzy kōji, or inoculated rice, covered the floor. Two conveyor belts, one carrying the cooled steamed soybeans, the other transporting the kōji, come together in a third room. There, the grain and beans are mixed with sea salt and spring water, then pressed through a big machine resembling a meat mincer. Next the mixture is packed into huge cedar barrels. A plastic sheet is stretched over the top and weighted with stones to force excess liquid to the top and help create a safe, airtight environment. Then the miso is left to ferment until the summer.

In June or July, Morita-san told me, the miso is moved to another set of barrels—exposure to oxygen enhances fermentation—and allowed to develop for a few more months. In November, the miso is stirred and transferred yet again so that the light brown color will be evenly distributed. Shortly after that, Morita-san tastes the miso to determine how much longer it should be left to mature. He looks for a dark brown color and a mild flavor; if it’s too salty at this point, eh said, it is not ready. Morita-san claims to have ruined a batch of miso only three times in 20 years, but he also told me that his loyal (and picky) customers have no qualms about pointing out even the slightest changes. Yamaki’s miso is neither dosed with alcohol to stop the fermentation process nor passteurized (as many misos are). Instead, when Morita-san believes his miso to be ready, he packs it into refrigerated steel vats. This way, all its natural yeasts and lactic acids (which are believed to aid in digestion) remain active, resulting not only in a more nutritious miso, but in one more complex in flavor.

At the end of my tour, Morita-san packed me a container of one of the brewery’s specialty misos—genmai-namamiso, which is made with brown rice instead of the usual white.

A week later, after I’d written him a letter thanking him for his hospitality, he offered me an even better gift: “Would you like to make your own miso at home?” he inquired by fax. Upon receiving my enthusiastic reply, he sent me two pounds of kōji and detailed instructions. I bought the finest soybeans I could find, a five-quart enamel container with a fitted lid, and four pounds of stone weights. I soaked and cooked my soybeans, mixed them with Morita-san’s kōji, then mashed them with sea salt and water. I packed it all into the pot, set it in my basement, and prayed for the growth of “good” miso bacteria. Four months later, I cautiously opened the lid. At once, I recognized the sweet rice fragrance that had permeated the brewery. The miso’s surface had acquired a lush dark brown hue, and to my relief, there were no “bad” bacteria. I stirred up my miso, then set it aside again. In November, Morita-san called, asked me how my miso was behaving, and suggested that it was probably ready. With that, I gathered some small containers, made a mental list of the lucky few I would share my miso with, and returned to the basement. I gave my miso several big stirs to even out the color, then I had a taste. “Temae miso desuga…”

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Rise & Dine is a SAVEUR column by Senior Editor Megan Zhang, an aspiring early riser who seeks to explore the culture of mornings and rituals of breakfast around the world.

While visiting my grandmother in Jiaxing, the city in Eastern China’s Zhejiang Province where my mom grew up, I walked into the kitchen to find my uncle scraping the fat from the red-braised pork belly left over from the previous evening. The collagen-rich sauce was now solidified and jelly-like after its overnight stay in the fridge, a milky-white layer of fat covering the surface like ice atop a frozen lake.

I was still in college at the time and had just begun to take a greater interest in cooking, so I watched curiously as he coaxed the spoon around chunks of meat suspended in the gelatinous mixture, then deposited the fat into four soup bowls.

That wasn’t where I’d expected the fat to go. Growing up in the U.S., I’d witnessed on many occasions my aunties and uncles skimming the lard from pork braises and discarding it—to minimize caloric density, I guessed, or stave off blood clots. (Fat was America’s most vilified macronutrient in the 2000s, after all.) I asked my uncle if he didn’t plan to do the same. He gaped at me with an expression between bewilderment and horror. The thought of tossing out all that concentrated flavor was, as he put it, “fù zhū dōng liú,” a turn of phrase describing hard-earned achievements washing away and going to waste. (He loves using Chinese idioms dramatically.)

I followed my uncle around the kitchen as he heated up homemade broth on the stove, then boiled water in another pot to make noodles. As the two vessels bubbled away, he swiftly chopped scallions and deposited seasonings like soy sauce and MSG into each serving bowl. Minutes later, he handed me a portion of steaming yang chun mian (mian means noodles).

I spooned some broth into my mouth, expecting it to be unctuous from the fat. On the contrary, the taste was light and delicate, yet full-bodied and savory. The scallions chimed in with bursts of pepperiness, and the springy noodles (long xu mian, or “dragon whiskers” noodles, so named for their thinness) had a satisfying chew. I couldn’t believe how seemingly quick and simple the process had been, or how a mere handful of ingredients could conspire to create such balanced, complex flavor.

Chinese people have long esteemed the coastal Jiangnan region—whose name translates as “south of the Yangtze River”—as yú mǐ zhī xiāng, or land of fish and rice. The area includes the buzzy metropolis of Shanghai and nearby cities like Jiaxing, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shaoxing, and Zhenjiang, where abundant waterways supply the local communities with bountiful aquatic fare, as well as fertile terrain for produce. The region’s delicate, understated dishes allow the flavors of its mainstay ingredients—from seasonal greens and freshwater crabs, to preserved foods like Shaoxing wine and Jinhua ham—to shine, explains Fuchsia Dunlop, author of the cookbook Land of Fish and Rice. “It’s about using seasoning lightly,” adds Lillian Luk, who was born and raised in Shanghai and now runs the pop-up Shanghai Supper Club in London. “You’re [only] trying to coax out whatever the ingredient’s unique taste is.” 

Jiangnan cooks have applied that philosophy broadly, even to initially foreign ingredients. According to Miranda Brown, professor of Chinese studies at the University of Michigan, when the capital moved south to Hangzhou during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127 – 1279), it prompted an influx of northern wheat-based delicacies like dumplings, spring rolls, and noodles. Over time, dishes that fused those concepts with the subtle seasoning styles of the south proliferated in the region. With its frugal, humble ingredients, yang chun noodles evolved into a popular breakfast item—as easy to make as it is quick and comforting to slurp down.

After that breakfast my uncle whipped up, I began seeing yang chun noodles everywhere I went in Jiangnan. Noodle vendors hawked it from street-side stalls, behind scribbled signage advertising a bowl for just 10 yuan (less than two U.S. dollars). Teenagers slurped it from plastic to-go containers while perched on the steps of their school. And there it was on the menu at Nanjing Impressions, an iconic national restaurant chain serving Nanjing specialties. It must have been the frequency illusion at work, waking me up to the ubiquity of this regional mainstay.

“If you ask Shanghainese people what they grew up eating [for breakfast], most people would think of yang chun noodles,” Luk surmises. My cousin Alex, who grew up near Nanjing and now studies in London, seconds this; whenever he misses home, the dish is “one of my go-to choices,” he tells me. Though yang chun noodles can cure homesickness any time of year, there may be no better time to enjoy the meal than spring. My uncle explains that the dish’s name likely derives from the term xiǎo yáng chūn (roughly, “little spring”): it’s a moniker for the tenth lunar month, when the weather tends to be balmy and spring-like despite it being autumn. Springtime also happens to be when green onions, which Luk considers an indispensable “magic ingredient in Chinese cooking,” are at their peak flavor. After the heaviness of winter’s rich meats and stews, a refreshing soup is the perfect palate cleanser to welcome a new season.

It’s been several years since my uncle made me wise to the gifts of lard. Since then, I’ve made this breakfast repeatedly, usually the morning after cooking some porky braise. The smell of the savory lard, salty soy sauce, and garlicky onions swirling together always transports me back to my ancestral homeland. I’ve also experimented with incorporating different textures into the dish over the years, adding toppings like blanched bok choy, rehydrated dried shiitake mushrooms, or soy sauce eggs. However, the beauty of this dish—what makes it emblematic of Jiangnan’s delicate, subtle style—is its pure simplicity. As my idiom-loving uncle might say, it’s best not to “huà shé tiān zú,” or draw feet onto a painting of a snake. The dish, like the reptile, is already complete.

RECIPE

Yang Chun Mian (Chinese Soy Sauce Noodles)

Get the recipe >

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Enter an average home in Japan for dinner today, and the spread is bound to include meat dishes. Japanese cuisine is so omnivorous that, until recent years, vegetarian restaurants were a rarity. But for most of Japan’s history, the majority of people have actually followed a primarily vegetarian diet, with meat considered an occasional delicacy. This makes it all the more surprising that Japan’s annual production of approximately 3.3 million tons of meat only covers about half of the nation’s continuously growing demand for it. It may appear Japan has lost touch with its vegetarian past—but a group of restaurant owners in the country’s rural mountains is working to change that, one bowl of rice at a time.

Japan’s appetite for meat dates back approximately 150 years, when Japanese society began associating it with wealth as a result of Western influence. During World War II, Japanese diets changed out of necessity, due to not only a shortage of farm workers but also redirection of resources toward the war effort by the military-controlled government. By the war’s end, many people had come to depend on foods that previously may have been discarded, such as offal, to avoid starvation. In the decades that followed, Japan saw rapid economic advancement, and as the population became more affluent, meat began occupying a more central position on people’s plates. Fast forward to the present day: enjoying KFC at Christmas has become a longstanding tradition in Japan, stand-up fast-casual steakhouses are gaining popularity, and customers line up for hours at restaurants like Ramen Jiro, a chain serving massive bowls of noodles in fatty pork-bone broth, usually with generous slabs of chashu pork belly on top.

Meat-heavy establishments begin to fade, however, as one heads into more rural areas, including the mountains of Niigata Prefecture on the west coast of Honshu Island. Here sits Minami Uonuma City, a series of sleepy villages connected by a few roads surrounded by miles of rice fields. Without a car, the only way for visitors outside of the city to reach these villages is a train line that often shuts down in the winter, when several feet of snow blanket the landscape.

Like many towns in Japan, Minami Uonuma has its own meibutsu, or local dish widely considered to represent the place. This town’s claim to fame is a fresh, crisp, and colorful dish called “kirizai-don,” a rice bowl topped with nozawana leaf, takuan radish, crushed kagura nanban pepper, and natto (fermented soybeans). Kirizai, which translates simply as “cut up vegetables,” is a centuries-old recipe. “This dish uses the knowledge that people living here acquired in the old days. By using food that can be preserved through winter, we utilized what was readily available and also healthy enough to feed an extended family without wasting anything,” says Yuji Nagumo, a Niigata native and owner of local restaurant Kyo. Kirizai was also once seen as a utilitarian, nutrient-rich army ration. “Back in the Sengoku period (over 500 years ago), samurai could quickly cut up and serve food like kirizai before leaving for battle—things like preserved nozawana and natto probably gave them a quick energy boost before a fight,” Nagumo adds.

Kirizai belongs to a type of cooking sometimes known as yamabito ryouri, or “mountain man cuisine,” a catch-all term for the home cooking of the farming communities in the mountains of Niigata prefecture, as well as parts of neighboring Gunma and Nagano. Yamabito ryouri is seasonal, homemade, and inherently farm-to-table; though this style of food is not strictly vegetarian, most dishes are—and feature local produce almost exclusively, be it fresh, pickled, or fermented. While probiotic foods are now widely regarded as beneficial for digestive health, past inhabitants of Minami Uonuma preserved vegetables for the simple purpose of prolonging their shelf life through the winter. In an interview shortly before he passed away in January, Takumi Saiki, the late owner of beloved local restaurant Kometaro, explained, “That was the way things were for hundreds of years around here; it was never thought of as health food per se, just a part of an everyday sort of meal.”

Though the dish is a local staple, one would be hard-pressed to find the humble, unpretentious kirizai-don outside of Niigata prefecture. Until recently, the dish had little name recognition outside of the regions that consume it. Even in Niigata, kirizai-don is a traditionally home-cooked meal that doesn’t often show up on restaurant menus, and Kyo is one of the few restaurants that serves it regularly. “I think it’s the closest equivalent to something like soul food; there’s nothing else quite like it in Japan,” Nagumo says. Though it has become in vogue in Japan to refer to comforting dishes as “soul food,” yamabito ryouri may have the strongest claim: it is traditional home cooking with a pedigree like nothing else around.

Nagumo is a member of the “Kirizai DE Aitai,” a group of about 20 local restaurant owners who have been promoting kirizai-don—and reintroducing their countrymen to healthy and  delicious farm-to-table cuisine, with an emphasis on the locally grown produce once considered staple foods around these parts. “Kirizai is important because all of its ingredients can be procured locally,” says Nagumo.

Because of the organization’s outreach, kirizai is now being served to local children as part of school lunches. The dish was even featured in the nationwide B-1 Grand Prix competition (a famous contest featuring regional cuisines), drawing food enthusiasts from all across Japan in search of kirizai-don. The group also recently began to serve the dish at rest stops during “gourmet bike tours”, aiming to promote cycling and food in the area. “We thought it would be nice to show the cyclists some of our local specialties, and they asked if we could provide some kirizai,” says Nagumo.

Last year, kirizai restaurants were also part of the town’s “Majidon” local gourmet publicity campaign spotlighting Minami Uonuma’s restaurant scene. More and more, kirizai has become synonymous with culinary promotion in this rural area, and it is even occasionally dubbed “chobishoku,” a Japanese portmanteau that can be translated as “gut beauty food.” 

For 550 yen, or roughly four U.S. dollars, one receives a big bowl full of kirizai-don at Kyo. The famously gooey, stringy natto, combined with the slightly tart nozawana, crunchy takuan, and piquant nanban pepper, creates a complex and bold textural sensation. The simplicity of the dish allows the clean flavors of the plant-based toppings to take center stage.

For Nagumo and others, serving such food is a way to preserve their plant-focused culinary culture for future generations. They hope that both the local children who now routinely eat kirizai and visiting adults who travel a long way in search of the dish can appreciate its benefits beyond taste or novelty. They want to instill eaters with an interest in the foods that grow natively in their own backyards, as an alternative to imported or factory-farmed products. “Of course, my son eats fast food. But when he comes back home from college, he likes things like kirizai,” Nagumo says. “[He] says it tastes like home.”

For the “mountain men” and those who share their table, eating vegetables is both the past and present—and could pave the way for a brighter, tastier future.

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“Ai-ya, I didn’t think my daughter would become one of those hippie types,” I overheard my mother say to a friend over the phone. I had decided to go vegan my junior year of college, and determined to learn to cook for myself, I looked up meal plans and recipes on Pinterest, followed popular bloggers, bought cookbooks, and stocked my pantry with lentils and chickpea pasta. I packed overnight oats to school and invited friends over to my tiny Houston apartment to make vegan pizza and grain bowls on weekends. I even started a recipe blog, posting photos on Instagram of the meals I made.

But it was different back at home, sitting at our scratched walnut table as my mom busied about the kitchen, preparing food for the holidays. My parents cooked mostly Chinese meals—a spread of shared dishes to go with rice—and they couldn’t understand why I would forgo a special dish of expensive seafood, or a stir-fry that had ground meat or a few pork slivers. “Just pick around and eat the vegetables, at least you still get the flavor from the meat,” my mom offered.

Over the winter break, I was determined to convert my family to a plant-based diet. I talked about the horrors of factory farming and the environmental footprint of meat and dairy. I pulled out my arsenal of recipes: Thai curries, walnut-meat tacos, creamy cashew pastas, and quinoa burgers. My siblings liked them well enough, but my dad gingerly bit into one patty and refused to eat the rest. “I’m cooking duck for dinner,” he announced. For Lunar New Year, our family gathered to make pork dumplings, as we did every holiday. It was my favorite tradition, and I usually helped make the filling, but this time, my dad looked up as he kneaded dough and saw me watching from the side.

“Rongrong, you aren’t participating?” he asked. It hadn’t occurred to me until then that my decision to go vegan wasn’t just about food or even a personal choice. My parents were immigrants; food was the way they taught us about our roots; certain dishes were central not just to my family’s memories, but also connected us to a lifetime of people and occasions and places and times that went before and beyond me. I wondered if my commitment to eat more sustainably meant I was turning away from my culture. Talking to my peers, I realized I wasn’t alone in these fears. It’s impossible to separate who we are from what we eat, and animal products are deeply ingrained in the food traditions of most cultures. How do you remove yourself from these traditions without a fundamental sense of loss?

But as I tried re-creating my favorite childhood dishes, I began to realize how much of Chinese food was inherently plant-based. And I learned that vegetarian and vegan cooking is its own cuisine in China, a rich tradition that had existed for more than 2,000 years, motivated by the Buddhist tenets of compassionate eating. On my trip to visit relatives in China one summer, I ate at temple restaurants, plant-based lunch canteens, and buffets, astonished by the flavor and ingenuity of dishes like clay pot tofu skin and delicate layered soups made with mung beans and shiitake mushrooms. This cuisine was beautiful, alluringly delicious, and rich in history—I wanted to learn more.

So, just a few months after I finished graduate school, I packed my bags and moved to China to go to culinary school. For the past few years, my journey to learn Chinese vegetarian cooking has taken me back to my parents’ hometown in Harbin, to Shanghai, to Chengdu, to Suzhou, and to Guangzhou,  where I trained as a chef at the only professional vegetarian cooking program in the country. It’s taken me to Taiwan, where I lived for a year, cooking and eating and learning from the vibrant Buddhist community who have preserved a microcosm of regional Chinese vegetarian traditions and developed new ones of their own. I’ve talked to old artisans who have been making tofu and soy milk skin for their entire lives, and have called up my parents to ask about our own family’s history, learning stories I was never interested in hearing before. Over the years, my dad has decided to cut most of the meat out of his diet for health reasons, and he’s always asking when I’m coming home so he can eat the food I cook. And unsurprisingly, my knowledge of Chinese culture has deepened. Becoming vegan didn’t alienate me from my heritage, as I’d feared, but actually motivated me to understand it even more.

In Chinese, 素 su translates literally to “vegan” or “vegetarian,” and you’ll see it on menus indicating dishes free of meat. But su also means simple, quiet and plainly unadorned, the elemental nature or essence of something larger. I began this book thinking I’d write about vegan recipes, but along the way I realized that this kind of cooking was actually at the heart of Chinese cuisine: the inventive transformation of frugal ingredients like vegetables, tofu, and grains into a breathtaking variety of simple and delicious dishes. China has eight major regional cuisines, each influenced by wildly different climates, agriculture, geography, and history, and each of the country’s twenty-three provinces has its own local vegetarian traditions and dishes. It’s impossible to cover them all, so instead I’ve drawn from my own experiences—this is a subjective compilation of my favorites.

Reprinted with permission from The Vegan Chinese Kitchen by Hannah Che © 2022. Photographs by Hannah Che. Published by Clarkson Potter, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.

The post Chinese Vegan Cooking Has Been Perfected Over Millenia (And You Can Taste It) appeared first on Saveur.

Rise & Dine is a SAVEUR column by Senior Editor Megan Zhang, an aspiring early riser who seeks to explore the culture of mornings and rituals of breakfast around the world.

Laurence Louie’s phone rang. It was his mother calling from Boston, and she wanted to give her son one last chance to take over her Chinese bakery before she retired.

Louie, who was working as a chef in London at the time, had rejected his mother’s offer the previous times she’d asked. Having cooked in the kitchens of Oleana in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as the Turkish restaurants Oklava and now-closed Kyseri in London, he thought of himself as a fine-dining chef; now that he’d been furloughed during the pandemic, he had plans to open an eatery of his own in England. But Louie’s time away from professional kitchens had given him space to think about what kind of cuisine he truly wanted to cook. Increasingly, the food of his heritage had been tugging at him—specifically, the buzzing and homey Cantonese cafés his family would frequent when he was growing up in Boston. 

“Sunday brunch was always in Chinatown,” he recalls. For Louie’s mother, who immigrated from Hong Kong to the U.S. in 1973 and has only returned a handful of times since, those weekly visits to Boston’s cha chaan teng-inspired diners helped transport her back to her hometown. 

Cha chaan teng, often referred to as Hong Kong-style diners, are humble cafés that emerged in the former British colony around the 1950s and became a bastion of the cultural confluence that has come to define the international economic hub. Serving affordable versions of British-influenced food to the working class, cha chaan teng offered eclectic menus of hybridized Canto-European dishes like macaroni-and-ham soup and baked pork chop rice smothered in tomato sauce and cheese. “It was a lot of Hong Kongers’ first step toward eating Western-style food,” says Lucas Sin, the Hong Kong-born chef behind the fast-casual American Chinese chain Junzi Kitchen.

With their accessible prices, efficient service, lively atmosphere, and old-school charm, the egalitarian establishments are still popular spots today for people from all walks of life to grab a bite or beverage. “Everyone can just be themselves,” says Samuel Lai, a University of London PhD candidate currently researching the culture of cha chaan teng. Amidst ever-urbanizing surroundings, many of these old neighborhood joints have managed to remain microcosms of the 1950s and ‘60s. “When you enter those cha chaan teng, you feel like you enter that era of Hong Kong,” says Alison Hui, a Hong Kong-based illustrator who developed an art exhibition celebrating the iconic diners.

Louie and his wife decided to take his mother up on her offer. When he thought more deeply about “what kind of food I would want to honor the space and her legacy,” he says, it became clear to him that he wanted to salute cha chaan teng. “It’s close to my heart.” In September, he and his family opened Rubato in the Boston suburb of Quincy, where Louie infuses cha chaan teng classics with non-traditional flourishes—Hong Kong-style French toast topped with cookie crumb, and buttery bolo bao (pineapple buns) with a crispy fried chicken filling.

Through his homage to these diners, Louie hopes to help preserve the spirit of the establishments, many of which now face an uncertain future. “A lot of the old cha chaan teng in Hong Kong are struggling, and a lot of them have closed,” says Sin. (Mido Cafe, which opened in 1950 and was one of the oldest, shut its doors earlier this year.) As elderly owners reach retirement age, many are choosing to shutter their diners. While some want their children to pursue more lucrative career opportunities, others find the young generation uninterested in the prospect of taking over the family business, Lai explains. The role of Hong Kong-style diners in society, as community-driven establishments where regulars catch up with their neighbors and socialize with waitstaff, has also shifted alongside the advent of smartphones and social media. In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven society, “everybody looks at their phones,” adds Hui. Finally, economic strain related to rising rent and the pandemic have dealt blows from which many historic cha chaan teng couldn’t recover.

In the U.S., immigrant-run eateries reminiscent of these diners are facing similar challenges. “The places I used to go to as a kid, they’re not there anymore,” says Louie of Cantonese joints in Boston and New York City. 

Both in Hong Kong and among the diaspora, there is a growing desire to see these restaurants continue to thrive. “Nostalgic feelings are so heavy in Hong Kong,” says Hui. In the wake of Beijing forcefully imposing its governance in Hong Kong, many locals feel an urgency to hold onto traditional elements that epitomize the place’s distinct culture and diversity. Cha chaan teng are “something that is very Hong Kong,” says Lai. 

Many famed and cherished Hong Kong-style diners are still alive and well, supported by legions of regulars who continue to rely on the eateries’ brusque but efficient service and dependable, unchanging food. At Australia Dairy Company, Sin’s favorite cha chaan teng, he knows exactly what to expect every time he stops in for breakfast: “You sit down, they ask you two questions. The first question is ‘How do you like your eggs?’ and the second is, ‘What do you want to drink?’” he says. Minutes later, the meal arrives, prepared just as he requested.

In recent years, some newer restaurants have tried to tap into people’s nostalgia for cha chaan teng by replicating the menus of these long-standing mainstays while modernizing the business model. Many of these enterprises, Lai points out, fall short: “Nostalgia is hard to recreate,” he says, “and it entails much more than just the food.” When these new spots introduce elements like electronic ordering systems that minimize human interaction, “it changes the whole atmosphere,” he observes.

Overseas, some young chefs are eschewing imitation or modernization in favor of celebrating cha chaan teng’s unique magic, and folding it into dining experiences that also acknowledge their immigrant upbringing. Louie recalls that when he was developing the concept for Rubato, he asked himself, “How do I reconnect with something that’s my own?” For him, the answer lay in the very spirit of cultural synthesis that gave birth to cha chaan teng in the first place. He drew influence from both his American upbringing and his experience cooking other cuisines professionally to infuse Rubato’s menu with his own singular flair. “We’re not a traditional cha chaan teng, and we’re not trying to be,” he says. “Food is ever-evolving.”

Elsewhere in America’s Northeast, the Cantonese American restaurant Bonnie’s in Brooklyn also pays homage to Hong Kong-style diners. The tiles that deck the floor “are exact replicas of the classic cha chaan teng mosaic floor tiles you would still see today in Hong Kong,” says chef and owner Calvin Eng. “We also incorporated a lot of stainless steel touches throughout the space, which you see quite often in Chinese establishments because of its practicality.” The dishes being served on those steel countertops, though, aren’t typical Hong Kong diner fare. Eng serves up one-of-a-kind creations that meld different food cultures together: cacio e pepe with fermented beancurd, McRib-inspired cha siu sandwiches, and yuenyeung-style espresso martinis.

Cha chaan teng, which usually focus on breakfast and lunch foods, also sling all sorts of coffee and tea drinks, including one that marries the two caffeinated beverages: yuenyeung. “You have sweetness from the tea and bitterness from the coffee, tied together with this velvety evaporated milk,” Sin describes. The drink’s namesake refers to mandarin ducks, which are usually found in pairs in the wild; in Chinese culture, the birds symbolize marital union. The moniker, Lai explains, speaks to how the two beverages “mesh together and become a very perfect combination of the two.”

Those unfamiliar with yuenyeung might find the cultural mash-up surprising, Lai adds. “But here in Hong Kong, we embrace that.”

Recipe

Yuenyeung (Hong Kong-Style Coffee Milk Tea)

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The post These Humble Diners Embody the Unique Hybridized Culture of Hong Kong appeared first on Saveur.

Rise & Dine is a SAVEUR column by Senior Editor Megan Zhang, an aspiring early riser who seeks to explore the culture of mornings and rituals of breakfast around the world.

Glee seeps into chef Damian D’Silva’s voice as he describes the breakfast that defined his childhood. “I would sit in anticipation of this man riding his bicycle,” he recalls of those early mornings waiting for fresh bread to be delivered from a neighborhood Indian Muslim bakery in his native Singapore. When the warm loaves arrived, D’Silva would slice into one and smear the bread generously with salty butter and heaping spoonfuls of his grandparents’ homemade kaya, a sweet, velvety condiment with a pleasant coconut flavor and pandan fragrance. The butter would melt and the kaya would ooze into the crispy, still-steaming bread. “It was the most amazing meal for me, you know? I just loved it.”

It’s hard to visualize the 66-year-old, 6 foot 2 Singaporean chef as a little boy, but I can certainly imagine the delight the luscious jam could spark in a child. A popular food in the cultures of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, and other Southeast Asian countries, kaya calls for multiple eggs, ample coconut cream, and many spoonfuls of sugar, stirred slowly over low heat to achieve the rich, gooey texture and ambrosial aroma that make the spread a morning favorite. 

Thoughts differ around the exact time and place of kaya’s origins (many believe its earliest roots date back to 16th-century Malaysia or Indonesia, and some ascribe influence to Portuguese colonialism), but there’s one thing everyone can agree on: making it from scratch is a test in patience, and the ultimate expression of care for anyone whose love language is feeding others. D’Silva, who owns the Singaporean restaurant Rempapa, vividly recalls his grandfather standing over a charcoal stove and stirring the mixture constantly as it cooked, to ensure the eggs didn’t curdle. Recipe developer and cookbook co-author Evonne Lyn Lee remembers her mother painstakingly squeezing milk from fresh coconuts and collecting eggs from the backyard chicken coop just to make a single batch. “It was such a treat,” says Lee, noting that store-bought versions weren’t common when she was growing up. “The [scent] of kaya lingered for the rest of the day.” Kyo Pang, who owns the Malaysian-style eatery Kopitiam in New York City, first learned how to make the jam from her grandmother in Pang’s native Penang, where they would pick fresh pandan leaves from their family garden. As Pang recalls, after she moved to New York City, “the thing that I would think about most was kaya.”

Many may share similar memories of the dish, but part of the magic of kaya is that “there are many strains and many species of it,” says cookbook author and food writer Christopher Tan. Lots of families like to add herbaceous pandan leaves, a tropical ingredient which infuses the kaya with a nutty scent, but they do it in different ways, dictated by regional variations and personal preferences: some drop them into the mixture whole to release their fragrance before removing them, while others pound them to extract the juice and imbue the kaya with a bright green hue. Some opt for palm sugar, while another permutation often associated with the Hainanese community calls for caramelized sugar, which gives the jam a brown shade. Peranakans, a mixed-race community descended from early Chinese migrants and local Southeast Asians in the Indonesian archipelago, often steam theirs, resulting in a custard-like kaya that is “much more solid and firmly set, which you can actually slice,” explains Tan. Cooks also steam the mixture in Thailand—sometimes inside a pumpkin with the seeds scooped out.

The most straightforward way of enjoying the jam, though, is perhaps also the most common today. Kaya toast likely originated when immigrants from the Chinese island of Hainan who settled in Southeast Asia found work as cooks in British households, where they picked up culinary techniques like Western-style baking. Many went on to open kopitiams, or coffee shops, where they popularized kaya-topped bread as a quick and tasty breakfast. “To me, it’s a real blend of the British culture into our lives,” observes Violet Oon, the Singaporean chef behind the eponymous restaurant National Kitchen by Violet Oon. The meal remains an essential part of Southeast Asia’s breakfast culture and kopitiam scene today. Ya Kun Kaya Toast, a Singaporean chain that first launched in the 1940s as a humble coffee stall, devotes much of its short menu to multiple iterations of its namesake dish. Some include peanut butter, others cheese; all come with sliced butter and generous schmears of kaya on crunchy bread. A full order also includes runny soft-boiled eggs, cooked so mildly that they’re practically soupy, then seasoned with soy sauce and white pepper.

Given the now-widespread availability of jarred kaya in grocery stores and from artisanal brands, not to mention the ubiquity of kopitiams (of which few still produce their own kaya in-house), a veil of nostalgia seems to envelop the bygone era when the only way to have the coconutty jam at home was to make it by hand. “I think anyone younger than me would probably be most familiar with it as a convenience product,” says Tan, who is 49. Even though a batch of kaya with 48 eggs takes D’Silva four-and-a-half hours to cook, he continues to make it at his restaurant Rempapa every so often: “It’s about selling people a piece of Singapore’s cultural history.”

Tan points out, though, that if ever there was an apt time for traditional hand-churned kaya to see a resurgence, it’s now: people are continuing to return to home cooking in the wake of rising food costs and the pandemic, and he’s already noticed some households selling their own homemade kaya online. The spread is also increasingly making a name for itself overseas. San Francisco bakery Breadbelly gained a cult following for its kaya toast, with green jam decorating the bread in signature squiggles. The dish is also a popular order at Kopitiam, Pang’s restaurant serving Malaysian-style coffee-shop fare. In 2020, Killiney Kopitiam, a chain with more than a century’s history in Singapore, brought its kaya toast to the U.S. for the first time with a Palo Alto, California location, and is now planning a Bay Area expansion. And eateries around the world are increasingly adopting the spread in nontraditional ways: in Paris, Asian-inspired canteen The Hood offers kaya alongside mantou, Chinese-style steamed wheat buns, while Melbourne’s LuxBite bakery works it into layered sponge cakes and macarons.

Whether homemade or store-bought, on toast or in pastries, kaya remains a nexus for the childhood memories of many Southeast Asians who are far from home. “Every so often, when I’m really homesick, I’ll make myself soft-boiled eggs, crack open a jar of kaya, and spread it on toast,” says Malaysia-born, New York City-based content creator Samantha Chong, whose mother is fond of the spread. “It brings me a little bit of comfort to know I’m eating something that she loves.”

Recipe

Kaya Toast

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The post Meet the Coffee-Shop Staple Serving Up Coconutty Vibes Around the World appeared first on Saveur.