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7 January , 2002
SOY
TO THE WORLD
As a staunch carnivore, I've often made fun of vegetarians as "bark-eaters" and scoffed at a lot of the things my health-conscious friends have eaten over the years.
| Now edamame is as common as sushi in the US. |
Eating tofu was no big deal to me. I didn't fry it up as a substitute for meat, but I certainly have had tofu all my life, served plain with shoyu (soy sauce) or in miso soup. And of course, soy sauce and miso are both products of the versatile soy bean. Those wrinkly brown pouches used in inari sushi to hold the rice are made of age, or fried tofu. Age can also be used in other dishes, including miso soup.
For the holidays, Erin made several types of the traditional sticky rice treat called mochi, and one of them required coating with a greenish powder called kinako, which adds a slightly sweet but otherwise indescribable flavor to the pieces of mochi. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that kinako is made from - you guessed it - soy beans.
The Japanese use soy beans in every conceivable way, and do not waste any part of it. Even the scum from making tofu is used to make something else - a mild-flavored, miso-textured byproduct called okada, which can be served as a side dish with bits of vegetables and seaweed mixed in.
Soy beans that have been fermented are eaten over rice as a smelly, slimy delicacy called natto. I happen to love natto, although even many Japanese revile it. I have yet to convince any of my non-Japanese friends to try it, because of its rank odor and its appearance - it looks like spoiled brown beans coated with snot. But I swear, drizzle it with shoyu and mix it into a bowl of steaming hot white rice, and you have a tasty, filling and nutritious meal. As the old advertising slogan goes, "It's so good and good for you too!"
Diners at Japanese restaurants may have had pieces of a ribbon-like brown strip called yuba as a side dish. That's also made from soy beans.
Plain soy beans in their pod, simply boiled with salt has long been a very common snack in Japan. But now edamame is as common as sushi on in the US.
In America, soy beans were once a minor crop, listed in the 1913 US Department of Agriculture handbook not as a food but as an industrial product. In fact, according to an anecdote published on the side of cartons of soy milk sold by White Wave, Henry Ford, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, helped American farmers during the Great Depression by using soy. Ford used a bushel of soy beans in every car that came off the assembly line by 1936, because the company's scientists had created novel uses for soy: as a source for auto body enamel, plastic for over 20 parts such as buttons and knobs, and even fabric containing 25 percent soy bean wool for the cars' upholstery. Ford's scientists also formulated the first soy ice cream during this time.
Today, 72 million acres of American farmland are devoted to the cultivation of the soy bean. Much of the harvest goes to make feed for chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows and salmon. Another large portion goes to produce oil for margarine, shortenings and salad dressings.
Modern processing technology, smart packaging and marketing of soy as a healthful product have elevated the lowly soy bean into a worldwide phenomenon. For years, the cult of soy in the West was limited to vegetarians or those who lived an "alternative" lifestyle. My dad would have called them all "hippies." But with the increasing interest in healthier living, food made with soy began capturing mainstream interest, appealing to "yuppies" (young urban professionals). In 1999, the US government's Food and Drug Administration announced that studies showed soy may lower both cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease. More recent reports indicate that soy may help prevent prostate cancer. Such claims have opened the floodgates for products made with soy. Some critics claim that too much soy can be unhealthy, and there is some controversy about whether soy should be taken in its natural forms or as processed food.
My first introduction to what would become today's soy industry came in the mid-1970s, when I was a college student and the word "yuppie" had not been invented. At the time, the marketing potential of the soy bean had not been discovered, and it was still considered a minor crop best-suited as an extender for poor people to make their meat stretch farther. Thus was born Hamburger Helper, which in its original incarnation was meant for low-income families, not busy middle class housewives. The box included a flavored mix of something called Textured Vegetable Protein, which was a processed and dried form of soy. You mixed it with some ground beef to make double the amount of meat you started with. I was so poor as a college student that I used it without the meat, just making the TVP for dinner. Little did I know how visionary I was being!
Today, Hamburger Helper has a much more high-class image, and so does soy, which is available in a dizzying array of permutations. You can have soy in the form of burgers, bacon, sausage patties or links, ground just like beef, in meatloaves and meatballs.
You can drink soy milk, cook with soy flour, top off a sandwich with soy cheese. You can take soy protein supplements, munch soy in health bars and drinks, wear and use soy textiles and plastics, snack on soy nuts and soy chips, have soy in pasta, and even read books and magazines printed with environmentally-friendly soy ink.
The other day Erin and I sat down to a healthy meal of Boca Burgers and Soy King brand chips for lunch. I couldn't believe that a veggie burger could satisfy my meat-eating tastes. But after frying up a couple of the patties and having them on buns with onions and ketchup and mustard, I had to admit, it tasted like meat and felt like meat. The chips were pretty close to Fritos.
I was impressed. It didn't quite make me a vegetarian, but it's nice to know that the soy bean I've grown up with has helped to make healthy eating a lot more palatable. We're planning on cooking up some chili with TVP and Boca Burgers, and seeing if 16-year-old Jared can tell the difference.
Now, THAT will be the true test of soy's versatility!