Microseason: First Frost Falls

AUTUMN

MORNING FROST

FIRST FROST FALLS

23 - 27 October

‘Tis the season of beans and there is no bean more prominent in Japanese living than daizu, soy beans. Daizu are of course used in cookery. It is the main ingredient behind tofu, our staple fermented condiments like soy sauce and miso, valuable dry pantry items, and many braised side dishes. But they are also used in the textile dying process, washi-making, and other folk crafts.

Through daizu, we are able to identify time and place, as each type of craft, technique, and food preparation are unique to a season, and region of the country.

In traditional natural agricultural practices, rice and daizu are farmed rotationally. Taking a single plot of land to make into a paddie and then turning it into a field, and back again. Like other regenerative crop rotation methods around the world, pairing rice and daizu ensures that the same land remains rich with minerals, leverages the microbes that trickle down from the mountains above, and properly moistens and drys every year.

It isn’t a surprise that rice and daizu make such a perfect pair, as it is these two materials that are truly the fundamental building blocks that enable Japanese living.

Photo credit: Tomohiro Ueno