One Bean, Many Foods: The Soybean Pantry

Edamame is the soybean at its simplest: immature beans boiled or steamed in the pod and served with salt. The name means stem beans in Japanese, recalling when they were sold still attached to their stems.

Soaking, grinding, boiling and filtering soybeans gives soy milk, a stable emulsion of oil, water and protein. It originated in China and is also the intermediate product in making tofu.

Okara is the fibrous pulp left when pureed soybeans are strained for soy milk and tofu. Fresh okara spoils quickly, so it stayed mostly in regional dishes such as the Japanese unohana.

Heat soy milk in an open shallow pan and a film of protein and lipid forms on top; collected and dried, it is yuba. It forms without a coagulant, so it is technically distinct from tofu, and Chinese records first document it in the sixteenth century.

Textured vegetable protein is made by extruding defatted soy flour, a byproduct of oil extraction, into a fibrous structure that resembles meat once rehydrated. Archer Daniels Midland developed and trademarked it in the 1960s.

Douchi turns soybeans into a seasoning by fermenting and salting them, which releases free amino acids and a strong umami character. It is a staple of Chinese regional cooking, famously stir-fried with garlic and chili.

Natto ferments whole soybeans with Bacillus subtilis var. natto and is eaten cold over rice. It likely developed from Chinese fermented soybean condiments like douchi, and modern commercial production began in Japan in the Taisho period, 1912 to 1926.

Tamari began as the liquid that runs off miso as it matures, and is made with little or no wheat. It is considered the closest surviving version of the soy sauce originally brought to Japan from China.

Kecap manis is a thick sweetened soy sauce from Java, blended with palm sugar that can be close to half the finished product. It seasons nasi goreng and marinates satay across Indonesian cooking.

Teriyaki ends the path with soy sauce used as a glaze, combined with mirin and sugar. Its name joins teri, the shine from sugar, and yaki, grilled, and it spread worldwide through Japanese immigrant cooking, especially in Hawaii.