Nihon Chomiryo Tabi
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Kyoto's white miso uses a large proportion of rice koji, goes easy on the salt, and is brewed for only a short time. The sweetness comes forward and the color stays pale. Plenty of households still make their New Year zoni with this miso.
What finishes a dish here is the condiment. In Gion there is a spice shop running since the mid-Edo period, where a black shichimi, roasted and ground, has been handed down. Head north and you reach the Tango coast, where there are breweries making vinegar from rice. The capital's cooking was built by gathering materials from both the mountains and the sea.
- Sweet white miso made with a large share of rice koji, and zoni
- Gion's black shichimi, and rice vinegar from Tango
Why Kyoto's seasonings taste light
Kyoto's seasonings are pale in color and sweet. The white miso, of which Saikyo Miso is the best-known example, has a bright milky color and a soft sweetness. The sweetness comes down to the amount of koji (the fermentation culture Aspergillus oryzae). It is brewed with roughly twice as much rice koji as soybeans, which is why it is called 20-wari koji, or double koji. More koji means the salt can be kept low, so the sweetness of the rice comes ahead of any saltiness.
The short aging period is the other reason it finishes white. Color deepens the longer something sits, so a short aging keeps the pallor. The same logic applies to shoyu: Kyoto cooking, which works to show off the color of its ingredients, uses usukuchi (lighter in color, higher in salt). Worth noting that usukuchi is only lighter in color; its salt content is actually higher than koikuchi.
Old houses of vinegar and shichimi
In Miyazu, in northern Kyoto Prefecture, vinegar made from rice alone has been handed down. Some breweries grow the rice themselves in their own paddies, keeping alive a way of making vinegar that takes considerably more work than usual.
In Gion, alongside ordinary shichimi, they have long made something called kuro shichimi, black shichimi. The ingredients are roasted and worked by hand, which turns the color black and lifts the aroma. Kyoto's shichimi, counting the shop on the approach to Kiyomizu-dera, is one of Japan's three great shichimi.
Local dishes and their seasonings
- Shiro Miso no Zoni (白味噌の雑煮)
- Kyoto's New Year zoni puts round mochi into a sweet broth of dissolved white miso. It is one of the few uses where the sweetness of Saikyo Miso is the point of the dish rather than a background note.
- Saikyo-yaki (西京焼き)
- Fish is marinated in a bed of white miso mixed with sake and mirin, then grilled. The sweetness of the koji works into the flesh, and because it burns easily the heat needs watching.
Makers in Kyoto
- Saikyo MisoFounded in 1830
A white miso brewery in Kyoto. It brews with a large proportion of rice koji, producing a strongly sweet white miso. - Iio JozoFounded in 1893
A vinegar maker in Miyazu. It produces pure rice vinegar, starting from growing the rice it uses. - Hara Ryokaku
A spice shop in Gion, known for its black shichimi, made by roasting the ingredients and working them by hand.
Stories from this area
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