Miso has been a fundamental cornerstone of Japanese cooking for many centuries. Between its use in soups, sauces, glazes, marinades and more, the majority of Japanese dishes will involve this fermented seasoning paste in some shape or form. It’s usually mixed with other ingredients or stirred into liquids like soups or sauces as it has quite a strong taste on its own (and is very thick in texture) – this allows the paste to add its incredible umami flavour to food, providing both health benefits and taste to a variety of dishes.
One would think that miso – being such a huge part of the national cuisine – would have originated in Japan, but it may well have first emerged in China. Evidence from as far back as the fourth century BC suggests that the Chinese were fermenting a mixture of soybeans, wheat, alcohol and salt to create a seasoning paste called hishio. There is also evidence of grains being salted and fermented with malt in Japan not long after, but the prevailing theory is that hishio was brought to Japan via an Imperial envoy, and then evolved to become miso some centuries later.