History of Natto and Its Relatives (1405-2012 - SoyInfo Center

present and future. Based on an article [sic, manuscript] by
Dr. H. Voldeng. In: 1979. Fats and Oils in Canada: Annual
Review. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Grain Marketing Offi ce,
Dept. of Industry, Trade and Commerce, Agriculture Canada.
[vi] + 95 p. See p. 1-10. Chap. 1. [7 ref]
• Summary: Contents: Introduction. Introduction of
soybeans to Canada. Importance of the soybean [worldwide].
Utilization. Food uses of soybeans: Oriental foods–Soy
milk, tofu, sufu, miso, soy sauce, tempeh, Hamanatto, natto.
Western ingredients–Full fat fl our, defatted fl our, soy protein
concentrates (70% protein), soy protein isolate (more than
90% protein), textured soybean protein. Soybeans in Ontario.
Development of short season varieties. Soybeans in Quebec
and the Maritimes. Soybeans in the Prairies (southern
Manitoba and Alberta).
A table shows soybean acreage in Ontario’s leading
counties in 1978. Kent 205,000. Essex 192,000. Lambton
170,000. Elgin 63,000. Middlesex 40,000. Other 7,000. Total
(Ontario) 705,000 acres.
Soybeans grown in Ontario can be crushed at three
plants: (1) Victory Soya Mills (owned by Procter and
Gamble) in Toronto. (2) Canadian Vegetable Oil Processing
Limited (owned by Canada Packers) in Hamilton. (3) The
recently completed Maple Leaf Monarch plant (affi liated
with Unilever Corporation) in Windsor. Total crushing
capacity in Ontario is about 35 million bushels per year.
The CSP Foods Plant in Altona, Manitoba, has in some
years crushed limited amounts of soybeans imported from
the U.S.
“Development of short season varieties: The justifi cation
for the effort to develop a large acreage outside of
southwestern Ontario has been the magnitude of imports of
soybeans, meal and oil. This has been and continues to be
sizeable. The situation (in metric tons = tonnes) is outlined
below for the 1977/78 crop year: (1) Whole soybeans:
Production 527,361. Imports 262,835. exports 64,173.
Domestic crushing 728,400.
(2) Soybean oil: Imports 28,100. Exports 1,400.
Domestic production 125,600.
(3) Soybean meal: Imports 376,300. Exports 45,600.
Domestic production 575,400. Source: Fats and Oils in
Canada, Annual Review, 1978.
Letter (e-mail) from Dr. H. Voldeng of Agriculture and
Agri-Foods Canada. 2010. Feb. 16. The original “article”
was not an article but a manuscript that was sent to the
publishers of this volume; they reduced the length slightly. It
was never published separately, no longer exists, and cannot
be cited separately. Address: Agriculture Canada, Ottawa,
Ontario.
810. Yamaguchi, Momoo; Kojima, Setsuko. eds. 1979. Wa-
Ei Nihon bunka jiten [A cultural dictionary of Japan]. Tokyo:
Japan Times. vii + 408 p. See p. 108. 19 cm. [Eng; jap]
• Summary: A very useful book with excellent defi nitions of
© Copyright Soyinfo Center 2012
HISTORY OF NATTO AND ITS RELATIVES 265
Japanese words in English. It is divided into nine parts; No. 2
is titled “dietary habits” (p. 79-131). Each defi nition has four
parts: (1) The word is written in romanized English, with
diacritical marks and a hyphen in compound words. (2) The
word is written in characters. (3) A long defi nition is given
in English. (4) Related words and “see also” words are given
(romanized) and key words in the English defi nition are
defi ned in Japanese (Chinese characters).
Words only distantly related to soy are preceded below
by an asterisk. Soy-related words: abekawa-mochi (with
“sweetened yellow soybean powder–kinako”), aburaage
(fried soybean curd), aemono, age-dama, age-dashi
(“soybean curd fried lightly without a tenpura batter”), Ajino-moto
(“a popular brand of monosodium glutamate”),
ama-zake, * an (sweet bean jam = azuki-an; Can be strained
{koshi-an} or mashed {tsubushi-an}), dengaku-tofu,
doburoku, eda-mame, fu (“dried, bread-like pieces of wheat
gluten”), fucha-ryori (“Chinese-style vegetarian dishes
served in some Japanese temples of Chinese origin”), ganmodoki,
goma-ae, goma-shio (widely used with sekihan),
hiya-yakko, inari-zushi, isobe-maki (with mochi, soy sauce
and nori), kara-age, kashiwa-mochi (stuffed with sweet
[azuki] bean paste), kina-ko (“yellowish soybean powder”),
kishimen (seasoned with soy sauce and topped with a few
pieces of fried bean curd), kitsune udon (seasoned with soy
sauce and topped with a few pieces of fried bean curd), koji,
koya-dofu, * kuzu-manju (a ball of sweet redbean paste
{azuki-an} with a covering of kuzu starch), kuzu-mochi
(with kinako), masu (a small square measuring box, usually
made of Japanese cypress {hinoki}. The three sizes measure
0.18, 0.9 and 1.8 liters. It is constructed by dovetailing,
without the use of nails or adhesive. It is used for measuring
soybeans, cereal grains, or for drinking saké), miso, misoshiru,
miso-zuke, * mochi, nabe-mono (often contain tofu;
examples are sukiyaki, yose-nabe, and mizu-taki), namagashi
(traditional Japanese confections made with beans
and/or glutinous rice, cooked but not baked), natto, * nori (a
dried sheet of laver, a seaweed), * oboro (related to sushi, not
soy), oden, * ohagi (coated with sweet redbean paste {azukian}),
shiru-mono (the two basic types are clear soup and
miso soup), * shiruko (sweet beanpaste soup with mochi; see
zenzai), shojin-age, shojin-ryori, shoyu, suki-yaki, sukiyakinabe,
suri-bachi, suriko-gi [suri-kogi], sushi, sushi-ya, teriyaki,
tofu, * ume-boshi (a Japanese pickled plum), wa-gashi
(Japanese-style confectionery), wakame, warishita (soy
sauce fl avored seasoning), washoku = nihon-ryori, yaki-dofu,
yaki-mono, yakko-dofu, yu-dofu, * zenzai (“a thick kind of
sweet redbean soup”).
Page 24 defi nes hiragana (lit. fl at kana) as “The cursive
form of kana script, one of the two sets of Japanese syllabary
writing. Hira-gana is more commonly used than the other
set called kata-kana. It is usually used for writing infl ectional
endings and function words not represented by Chinese
characters (kanji).” Address: Tokyo, Japan.