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

a summary of the Introduction, and some of Akiko’s
illustrations in one of the fi rst issues of Bio News (See
issue 5/6, letnik 1993, p. 40-44). Some readers (especially
women) showed great interest in it! Later I translated some
paragraphs from The Book of Tofu and published them
(together with Akiko’s good illustrations) in issues 14 and
15 of Bio News. At the end of the article I gave the address
of Soyfoods Center for all people interested in ordering your
books.
“Last year I was attracted to making seitan and tofu
from organic wheat and soybeans. Mr. Mirko Trampus is my
very good friend. He has an organic farm in Metlika (1 km
from the border with Croatia, in southeastern Slovenia). He
has been growing wheat, soybeans, and daikon organically
for the last 6 years with very good results. We decided to
make a kitchen in his house for transforming Mr. Trampus’
soybeans, wheat and daikon into tofu, tempeh, natto,
soymilk, seitan and pickled daikon.
“A few days before New Year 1995 I visited all
Ljubljana’s bookshops, because I wanted to fi nd some
information about tofu and seitan. What a surprise! There
was your Book of Tofu. I found it once again and bought a
copy. I was so happy. Not far away I found the book Cooking
with Seitan by Barbara and Leonard Jacobs, with a foreword
by Aveline Kushi.
“Now (at the end of February 1995) we are making
about 50 kg of seitan per week by hand. We sell it in some 20
healthy food shops all over Slovenia.” He would like to start
making tofu, soymilk, natto, and tempeh, Later he would like
to make miso too. “Our aim is preparing 100% vegetarian
foods of the highest possible quality, made from organically
grown soybeans, wheat, and daikon. Now we need more
information. Presently Mr. Trampus grows about 12,000 kg
of wheat and 9,000 kg of soybeans per year. Prof. Spanring
is our good friend. He helped Mr. Trampus to choose the best
varieties of soybeans for making tofu and the wheat with the
highest gluten content for seitan. Now we use hard winter
wheat. We mill it into fl our in our own mill with stones.
From 100 kg of wheat fl our we get about 23 kg of very dark
brown seitan.
“Up until now, all of the starch has been rinsed by hand,
but we have constructed an automatic rinsing machine which
will be prepared for use very soon. We presently rinse using
only warm water at about 30ºC. We discard all the starch
(putting it on compost heaps on the fi elds), but later we will
use it as an ingredient in cooked soymilk puddings.”
Jan would like to order The Book of Tempeh. He is
looking for a source of tempeh starter. Tempeh is largely
unknown in Slovenia, but he would like to introduce it
because it is a healthy food and tastes very good. Address:
Mestni trg 22/1, 68330 Metlika, Republic of Slovenia.
Phone: (386) 068 59 481.
1498. Walsh, James. 1995. Suiting foreign tastes: Designer
© Copyright Soyinfo Center 2012
HISTORY OF NATTO AND ITS RELATIVES 462
foods being made to fi t standards in Japan, world market.
Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota). March 5.
• Summary: There is a growing demand for “designer”
beans–a “value-added” product. Minnesota researchers
(such as those at the University of Minnesota College of
Agriculture) have developed, and Minnesota farmers are
growing and selling, soybean varieties especially tailored
for Asian niche markets. Proto soybeans are large-seeded,
and high in protein, excellent for making tofu. They are
often grown under contract with Asian companies. Minatto
soybeans are a small-seeded variety, sold to the Japanese for
making natto. Chico soybeans, also small seeded, are used to
make soy sprouts.
According to John McLaughlin, an international trade
representative in the Minnesota World Trade Offi ce, one
promising and rapidly expanding new U.S. market is for
organic foods. U.S. domestic sales of organic foods have
risen dramatically from about $178 million in 1980 to
almost $2,000 million in 1993, according the Natural Food
Merchandiser magazine. The Japanese alone pay more than
$1,400 million a year for organic food, and that market has
grown 80% a year for the past 5 years. Minnesota, which
boasts 150,000 acres of organically certifi ed cropland, is
working hard to court these buyers.
Jim Orf, a professor and soybean researcher at the Univ.
of Minnesota, notes that of the 20 to 30 soybean varieties
developed by his university since the late 1970s, seven
have been developed specifi cally for Japanese food use.
In addition, private companies in Minnesota contract with
Japanese buyers to develop and grow soybean varieties.
SunRich, a company in Hope, Minnesota, that grows
soybeans and waxy corn for Japan, “also has developed
edamame, the boiled green soybean that Japanese eat as bar
snacks. But so far, U.S. versions of that food have not met
Japanese taste standards.” Allan Routh, a soybean farmer
from New Richland, Minnesota, and part-owner of SunRich,
grows 20-40% of his crop for export. He must work hard to
meet the standards set by Japanese buyers, but the Japanese
offer premiums of $0.25 to $1.50 per bushel.
1499. Azevedo, Chris; Gallagher, Paul. 1995. Trends in
Japan’s soybean market. Paper presented at a conference
titled “Producing Soybeans for the Soyfoods Market.” 8 p.
Held 2 March 1995 at Ames, Iowa. [6 ref]
• Summary: The pages and most tables in this report are
unnumbered. One table shows per capita annual consumption
(in lbs) of soybeans in selected Pacifi c Rim countries in
1974, 1984, and 1994, as follows, in descending order of
pounds consumed per capita in 1994: Indonesia: 9.2, 14.0,
23.2. South Korea: 21.4, 18.8, 20.1. Japan 11.0, 15.3, 16.7.
North Korea: 11.8, 12.2, 11.2. Malaysia: 2.9, 5.2, 10.3.
China: 14.7, 13.0, 9.7. Thailand: 1.2, 3.9, 3.9. Philippines:
0.4, 0.5, 0.8. Sources: (1) USDA; (2) U.S. Bureau of the
Census, World Population Profi le, 1994 and 1984; (3)