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

mortars, big iron cauldrons and manual labor. Perhaps Niger
was the same way, but Chad has next to nothing in the way
of time-saving tools. We did manage to borrow someone’s
hand-cranked meat grinder to make the soy milk.
“The fallout from soyday is this: the chef du canton, in
whose compound I live, wants to make our village a center
for soya cake, and we plan to serve it to the US Ambassador
and Minister of Health who are due out in the village next
week to inaugurate our newly renovated clinic, grâce à
USAID. New members of the health team want to launch
an infant-feeding program of soy porridge at the dispensary
each Saturday or vaccination day. There is one such program
started by a French doctor named Dr. Magguie Negri in a
village called Bekemba, about 60 km north of here. She
started the program in 1991, and reports feeding 103 children
in 1993, on a continued basis. She encourages mothers to
prepare the soy meals (porridge) themselves, and to aid with
a community soycrop. (Paperwork to follow if I can fi nd
any).
“The infant nutrition program couldn’t come at a better
time for Bessada which now fi nds itself in the midst of a
fatal measles epidemic, compounded by the beliefs that
vaccinations give AIDS and measles and that giving meat to
a baby or child with measles will make her sicker.
“So, in my village, soybeans are growing fast and well,
and I will leave here knowing that at least I have made a
substantial contribution to the well-being of a place it seems
that history has forgotten. God, it’s hard here. People scrape
a living out of the sand with their bare hands.”
“So. The gospel spreads forth. Having seen the damage
wrought by so many other egos and programs come here to
save the Africans, plugging away for The Soybean is one
of the only acts of development I really feel comfortable
engaging in.
“So no, in answer to your question, soybean cultivation
is not a specifi c Peace Corps program or govt. program
here.”
“As for me, I was a Vanilla Edensoy and tahini
tofuburger fan back in the States, but I never knew much
about soy until now.”
Color photos taken by Joyce show: (1) Three African
men weeding a fi eld of soybeans by hand, Sept/Oct. 1994.
(2) Soybean plants in Bessada growing in the shade of a
Karité tree, Aug. 1994. (3) Four Africans (two in traditional
dress) from the health team seated outside of Joyce’s round
mud-walled house with conical thatched roof. Atop a wooden
mortar are fi ve glasses of soybean coffee on a white plate.
Enclosed is a recipe for “Bessadonian soya coffee deluxe,”
by Joyce. Season, if desired, with tumba (Arabic tea spice).
It’s cheap, nutritious, and you can eat the grounds. Address:
U.S. Peace Corps, B.P. 193, Sarh, Chad.
1495. Arnold, Kathryn. 1995. The joy of soy. Delicious!
(Boulder, Colorado). Feb. p. 34-36. [3 ref]
© Copyright Soyinfo Center 2012
HISTORY OF NATTO AND ITS RELATIVES 461
• Summary: The soybean “has long been revered by
vegetarians as a nutritional powerhouse. However, the real
secret is that soyfoods may help prevent disease.” They are
cancer fi ghters and good for the heart. A table (p. 36) lists
12 different types of soyfoods and their uses: Tofu, tempeh,
okara, miso, natto, TVP, soymilk, soy grits, soy fl our, soy
cheese, soy sauce, soy yogurt.
Note: This periodical, which began publication in about
1983, is published for natural products consumers by New
Hope Communications in Boulder, Colorado. As of March
1998 some 425,000 copies of Delicious! are distributed each
month to over 900 health food retail stores throughout the
United States.
1496. Hara, Toshio; Saito, Hiroyuki; Iwamoto, Nobuhide;
Kaneko, Shinji. 1995. Plasmid analysis in polyglutamateproducing
Bacillus strain isolated from non-salty fermented
soybean food, kinema, in Nepal. J. of General and Applied
Microbiology (Tokyo) 41(1):3-9. Feb. [17 ref]
• Summary: Reports that the plasmid of Bacillus subtilis
(natto) isolated from Japanese natto resembles that of
Bacillus subtilis isolated from thua nao (of Thailand) and
kinema (of eastern Nepal and environs).
Note: This issue is dedicated to the memory of Kin-ichi
Sakaguchi (1897-1994); he died on 9 Dec. 1994 at age 97.
A memorial appears on pages 1-2; a full-page portrait photo
faces page 1. Address: 1-3. Microbial Genetics Div., Inst. of
Genetic Resources, Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu Univ.,
Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812, Japan.
1497. Krizstan, Jan. 1995. Re: Work with seitan and
soyfoods in Slovenia. Letter to William Shurtleff at Soyfoods
Center, March 1. 2 p. Typed, with signature.
• Summary: Jan phoned on 6 January 1995, then wrote a
long letter dated March 1. His fi rst name is pronounced
“Yan.” He was born in 1967 in Ljubljana, the capital of
Slovenia, where he now lives. He worked for two years
on Slovenian television, then in 1992 he quit because of
unhealthy working conditions. He had already been a
vegetarian for 2 years and he knew that many people are
looking for and need healthy food, but they don’t know
how to get it. So he started a small private company named
“Izvor” (“The Source”) and in Sept. 1992 started (together
with friends) to publish a magazine in Slovenian titled Bio
Novice (“Bio News”) that would connect these people. The
main subjects were growing plant foods in accordance with
Nature, healthy diets, ecology, alternative medicine, and the
culture of peace and non-violence. “It was very diffi cult,
because we started with almost no money, but we published
15 issues of Bio News. In December 1994 we had to stop
publishing because of big fi nancial problems.
“One of my friends [Vesna Crnivec] translated some
paragraphs from The Book of Tofu about preparing home
made tofu and made an article. We published her translation,