Readers are no doubt in a frenzy of anticipation waiting for my weekly discussion of Just Desserts. What can I say after Wednesday's episode? There really doesn't seem to be any point: it was far more Project Runway than Top Chef, with one of the only food-related comments I can recall coming from Pompadour about Eric's 'damn good' cheesecake. The rest was just silliness.
It would be far more profitable (and therapeutic) to discuss my latest crisis, which started on Tuesday when I was contemplating the leftovers from Saturday's gala dinner. What to do with quite tasty, although small and irregularly-shaped, grilled pork-loin bits? A stir-fry! I went to reach for my trusty bottle of naturally-fermented Japanese shoyu to begin preparations and was taken aback to find none in the pantry.
This in and of itself qualifies as An Event. I am never without several bottles of soy sauce, inscrutably labeled in Japanese calligraphy and wrapped in handcrafted rice paper, purchased on my bi-annual trips to Mitsuwa in Edgewater, NJ. Readers may think that my penchant for international food is limited to French pastry - but let me make it clear that if forced to choose my desert island cuisine or what I want for my last meal, I'll go Japanese every time. Mitsuwa, just south of the GW Bridge, is my temple. It's a life-changing Japanese supermarket that has to be seen to be believed: foodies who have not yet made the pilgrimage are urged to do so without delay. In addition to $70 musk melons and authentic wasabi rhizomes (more expensive than caviar) they offer a fine selection of good Californian sushi rice, beautiful fresh fish and beef for sukiyaki, every kind of natto and kamaboko you can imagine, and endless aisles devoted to sake and shochu.
What with one thing or another, my Fall trip has been postponed several times with the tragic outcome that my kitchen shelves are disturbingly low on rice and furikake. And shoyu.
The unfortunate result? I had to go to my local Wegman's and buy supermarket soy sauce to tide me over until my next trip east on Route 80. There I stood in the Asian food aisle. What imp of the perverse caused me to read the labels on all those bottles of Kikkoman and Wegman's own soy sauce? What was I looking for? Maybe it's just habit these days, because soy sauce couldn't possibly have gluten in it, could it?
Wise readers will already have guessed the truth.
I am the last person on the planet to discover that soy sauce is made from wheat.
Sigh. There it was, on every bottle's ingredients list - right after soy beans, right before salt. Every bottle! I felt like I'd been bludgeoned right upside the head by a large sashimi tuna. I ran to the gluten-free aisle, seeing in my mind's eye about 60% of my working-week dinner repertoire scattered to the four winds. After all, what's simpler and more go-to than a nice slice of lean protein, grilled, with some sort of soy-sauce based glaze or sauce? Once again, catastrophe. Nothing labelled gluten-free soy sauce anywhere in the whole freaking place.
I entertained the vain hope that only crass American soy sauce has wheat in it and put in an emergency phone call to Sir, who is still in Tokyo. He agreed to do some research and get back to me. Was there ever a more dispiriting subject line in an e-mail than 'Not Good'? Not in my universe. Sir's Japanese contacts had informed him (rather pityingly, I suspect) that all shoyu is made from wheat: they even taught him the kanji for wheat (komugi, which literally reads 'little barley', interestingly enough) so he could go and harass the shopgirls at the Isetan food hall on my behalf. No joy there either, although Sir reported with great satisfaction that the shop assistants were lithe and lovely and ever-so-helpful.
I did what I always do in these situations and ran to the internet. Several restorative cups of tea later, I had a few answers. Wheat, it turns out, is integral to the brewing of most true soy sauce, which is made by fermenting soy beans and crushed roasted wheat together with salt and water. Tamari, a very old variety, isn't generally made with wheat (it's a product of hacho miso production) but only gaijin use it like soy sauce, as in Japan its overly strong salty flavor is used almost exclusively in Kyoto's kaiseki cuisine. Of the factory-produced soy sauce one buys in five-gallon drums (produced from acid-hydrolized de-fatted soy flour; caramel coloring; and corn syrup) the less said the better.
How was it possible I had not previously heard the news? Well, as I said earlier, the labels on my soy sauce bottles are authentically kanji-fied and thus a mystery to anybody who hasn't attended 6th grade in a Japanese elementary school. I was pretty sure The Nutritionist had not discussed soy sauce at our meeting, although since The Table went into the circular file after the whisky debacle I was unable to confirm. I went to the admirable cookbook the Diva sent me, which has a whole Asian chapter, to see what it had to say. In its discussion of Asian ingredients, I'm sorry to report it was less than authoritative: 'There are several brands of soy sauce that are certified gluten-free.' Well, that doesn't tell me anything! Just because something isn't certified doesn't mean it isn't gluten-free (viz. the whisky debacle). Plus, a minute's research into international food labelling regulations revealed that, in Japan, the gluten-free certification is virtually unknown. I thought I detected a whiff of double-talk and intentional ambiguity.
I subsequently launched myself headlong into a meta-analysis of internet soy-sauce resources that lasted well into the wee hours. I followed several tantalizing clues, went down many blind alleys, and finally came to a conclusion with which I can live (just as my Excel plot predicted). But that will have to wait for another day.
Next up: I expose a conspiracy perpetrated by fear-mongering American tamari manufacturers.
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