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PERSONAL ACCOUNT: MAKING HOME MADE MISO/SOYBEAN PASTE IN OSAKA
1/20/2010

Kippo News from Wednesday, December 16, 2009

I arrived five minutes early for an appointment to interview a man from Britain. It is said

that British people are strict with time. When I was strolling past the gate of an office building in Osaka City to kill time, a tall foreigner showed up, saying in Japanese, "Ano (Excuse me)..." He was Anthony Flenley (photo), 56, president of Osaka Miso Jozo Co. that manufactures miso (fermented soybean paste) and the man I was scheduled to meet. Our encounter took place on the east side of a place just in front of Dome-mae Station on the Namba Line of Hanshin Electric Railway Co. A row of dawn redwood trees in the vicinity of the area had begun to change color.

"So you would like to know our method of making miso?" he said as he proceeded to tell me coherently about the manufacture of the traditional Japanese seasoning. "We mature it slowly in conformity with changes in natural temperatures. It's a natural way of brewing."

Rich taste loved by food buffs
His company makes a variety of miso. The production process includes steaming rice and tossing into it rice malt known as koji, used as a fermentation starter. Then, steamed soybeans are crushed, to which malted rice and salt are added. The mixture is placed in a muro (hot house) for fermentation. "The method up to this point is virtually the same as those of other miso makers," Flenley said.

"For instance, shiro (white)-miso can be made in one or two nights. But this is merely sweet without any koku (rich, robust taste). We let our shiro-miso mature slowly for about three weeks so that soybeans break down to bring about the koku and delicious taste that soak into one's palate."

On the other hand, the company spends a year or two to produce aka (red)-miso depending on the grade of the final product. It does not add heat to accelerate maturation. Naturally, the manufacturing efficiency is not good. "Still, gourmets and professionals (cooks) know the koku of our miso very well," Flenley said.

The late novelist Sakunosuke Oda touched on miso soup in an essay titled "Discovery of Osaka," saying there used to be a restaurant called "Shiru Ichi" in the city's Minami entertainment area that offered nothing but miso soup. Its shiro-miso soup (photo) was absolutely superb and he had three bowls of it in succession while blowing on them to cool them. The restaurant's miso was delivered by Flenley's company.

Wife proves to be miso maker's daughter
Because of his father's job transfers, Flenley lived in many places in the world in his childhood and experienced a wide variety of food cultures. A graduate of the University of Wales' department of French literature, he became an English conversation school teacher in Osaka in 1977 through the good offices of his acquaintance. He has also taught English at corporations in Kuwait and Nagoya City. He married a Japanese woman while she was studying in Britain.

"The parents of my wife own this company," Flenley said. "They had two children, both daughters, and asked me one day if I could take over the family business...It was in September 1990." His job is not easy. He gets up in the darkness of early morning to help employees working in the company's sales office located in Osaka City's central wholesale market. He has a very thick notebook as large as a lunch box, which contains meticulous accounts of his study of koji mold and miso-making expertise he acquired as an on-the-job trainee at a competing company after all sorts of hardships as well as know-how he has worked out himself. There are hardly any notes written in English. Instead, jottings are inscribed in difficult kanji (Chinese characters).

It is more than 100 years since his miso production firm was established in 1906. As the boss of 12 young workers, he is working hard to produce old traditional miso with deep koku taste he is particular about, even if profits are low. Incidentally, he is an enthusiastic fan of the Japanese professional baseball team Hanshin Tigers. He spends his free time in the right field bleachers rooting for the Tigers. Maybe he recharges his batteries this way. (Omori)

Osaka Miso Jozo Co. (Japanese Only)

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