Japanese Natto
One of the traditional foods eaten for breakfast in Japan is Natto. Many people do not like eating Japanese Natto because it has a very strong smell and taste. Natto is said to be a very nutritious food, and over the years has become more popular. It is a product made from fermented soybeans with Bacillus Natto, and has many good qualities like
keeping your skin young due to rich content of protein and vitamin B2. But there other reasons too like having a high content of K2 which is necessary in preventing osteoprosis. It also contains Nattokinase which is a fibrinolytic enzyme that is said to reduce and help against blood clotting, which therefore helps you to prevent against the risk off heart attacks and strokes.
Japanese Natto does not have to be eaten uncooked it can be added to misc soup, omelette, tempura and other things as long as you do not have allergy to soy.
Common ways of eating Natto
1. Place natto in a small basin
2. At first stir natto
3. Try soy sauce
4. Chopped onion and karashi mustard can be added
5. Add it to steamed rice
When opening a packet of Japanese Natto you will notice the very strong ammoniacal smell, like that of a very strong cheese. It has a gluey texture and when stirred produces spider-web like strings. Natto is, as said earlier, traditionally eaten as a breakfast meal, often served with rice. To this is also added other foods and sauces to improve the flavor such as soy sauce, tsuyu broth, mustard scallions, grated daikon, okra, or a raw quail egg. People use sugar on natto in the Hokkaido and Northen Tohoku regions. There are many other different variations of using natto in your diet, natto sushi, natto toast, in miso soup, salad okonomiyaki, or even with spaghetti or as fried natto. A dried form of Japanese natto, having little odor or sliminess, can be eaten as a nutritious snack. Natto has also been used in ice cream.
Natto has a taste in many ways that one has to learn to like an acquired taste, which is why more often that not it is used with other foods, some times only small quantities are eaten at a time. It is like many foods, different people find different tastes with it. For example, some non-Japanese find it a delicacy while others find it very unpleasant. The taste of it has been compared to many different things in several different countries for example, Vegemite in Australia, blue cheese in France, lutefisk in Norway and Sweden, Mämmi in Finland, and Marmite in New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. Some areas of Japan consume more natto than others. Japanese Natto is known to be popular in the eastern Kanto region (Tokyo), but less popular in Kansai (Osaka, Kobe). About 236,000 tons of natto are consumed in Japan each year.