Start with these 35 seasonings from Ehime in total
Iyo miso is brewed with barley koji. The proportion of koji is higher than in rice miso and the aging is shorter, so the salt sits quietly and the sweetness comes forward.
Fish from the Seto Inland Sea tend to be firm and mild, and they suit a sweeter miso better than a salty one. That relationship between the fish and the miso is why sea bream dishes survive all over the prefecture. This is citrus country too, so there is never a shortage of ways to add acidity.
- Barley miso with a high koji ratio and sweetness up front
- Flavors built around the mild fish of the Seto Inland Sea
Why the miso of Ehime is sweet
The miso of Ehime is barley miso, brewed with barley. The proportion of koji is higher than in rice miso and the aging is shorter, so the salt stays quiet and the sweetness comes forward.
What makes that possible is the raw material: naked barley. Ehime grows more naked barley than any other prefecture, so there is no shortage of material for barley koji. Unlike hulled barley, naked barley has a thin outer coat, and the koji mold works through it easily. Blend more of this barley than soybeans, finish it with the salt held down, and you get Iyo barley miso, where a toasted note and a natural sweetness sit together.
Fish from the Seto Inland Sea tend to be firm and mild, and a miso with sweetness suits them better than a strong salt. The fish of this place and its miso grew up together.
Barley miso, and Gino Sakubee
Barley miso has been brewed widely from Kyushu through the Seto Inland Sea, and Ehime sits at the eastern end of that range.
You cannot talk about barley miso here without the story of Gino Sakubee, handed down in Iyo Masaki. During the Kyoho famine in the middle of the Edo period, with starvation in front of him, he is said to have refused to eat the seed barley, leaving the next year's harvest to the village and dying himself. People called him gino, the righteous farmer.
Gino Miso, the largest miso brewery in Ehime, was founded in that town of Masaki in 1958 and took Gino Sakubee's name as its own. A region that grows naked barley, and the memory of a farmer who protected the seed. Behind the sweetness of barley miso is this land's history with barley.
Local dishes and their seasonings
- Satsuma (伊予さつま)
- Grilled white fish is flaked, combined with grilled miso, loosened with dashi, and poured over barley rice as a cold soup. It is a fisherman's dish from Nanyo, around Uwajima, and the sweetness of barley miso becomes the taste of the dish itself.
- Imotaki (いもたき)
- A hotpot of taro simmered with chicken and vegetables, seasoned sweet and salty with shoyu and mirin. In Ozu and other places, the custom of gathering around the pot on the riverbank in autumn is still kept.
- Uwajima Taimeshi (宇和島鯛めし)
- Raw sea bream is marinated in a sauce of shoyu, egg and dashi, then laid over hot barley rice. It is a different dish from the Matsuyama taimeshi where the bream is cooked with the rice, and it is said to have started as a fisherman's dish in Nanyo.
Makers in Ehime
- Gino Miso (義農味噌)Founded 1958
The largest miso brewery in Ehime, in the town of Masaki. Its flagship, Iyo no Miso, blends more domestic naked barley koji than soybeans and is finished at a restrained salt content of about 8.5%. The company takes its name from Gino Sakubee, who protected the seed barley through the Kyoho famine. - Mitsuboshi Shokuhin Kogyo (三星食品工業／みつぼし醤油)
A shoyu brewery in Tanbara, Saijo. It began when the founder and three young makers took over the taste of Aiboshi, an old shoyu house in Ehime, and the shoyu was named Mitsuboshi. They also make a shirodashi using Ibuki iriko from the Seto Inland Sea.
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