Miso

Miso is a fermented paste of soybeans, salt and a mould culture, koji, foundational to Japanese cooking and used for soup stock, marinades and seasoning. Its lineage traces to jiang, a Chinese fermented condiment of soybeans and grain attested in written sources by the middle of the first millennium BCE, with detailed preparation methods recorded in the sixth century Chinese agricultural manual Qimin Yaoshu. The fermenting technique reached Japan by way of China or Korea by around the seventh century CE. The earliest secure Japanese documentary reference, under the name misho, appears in the Taiho Code of 701 CE, and the modern name miso is attested from the Heian period, 794 to 1185 CE.