Article 021: Dreams and the Voice of Asparagus
Article Summary
Three years of tending before the first real harvest — and still, each spear pulled from the ground earns a quiet word of praise.
A miso encountered by chance lodged itself so deep it returned in sleep.
The cut of a cucumber, the precise amount of paste balanced on chopstick tips, a foam container replaced by ceramic — in these unremarkable decisions, something close to a personal philosophy quietly takes shape.
Category
Cooking, Summer
These are moments I have lived inside Japanese food culture — set down here as they came to me.
Read them, if you like, the way you might sit beside a low fire that has already passed its peak — warm, unhurried, needing nothing from you.
1. Next Year, the Asparagus Will Be Ready
- Cucumber with Hatcho miso
- Fresh chèvre and fish cake
The north wind that cuts through the east side of the house has finally lost its edge.
I am grateful for what wind takes with it — the dampness sitting in the soil.
Perhaps because the ground has dried well, a neighbor brought over cucumbers: field-grown, a little early for the season.
Around the same time, the asparagus harvest here was winding down.
Each year the yield grows heavier, the spears a little thicker — something I notice with quiet satisfaction.
That means next season, I will feed the roots more carefully.
The cucumbers arrived with their surface spines still sharp. Picking one upPicking one up, the taut firmness and a sharp, freshly-cut green scent came through my fingers before I had even brought it close.
Today's cooking is as simple as cooking gets — vegetables eaten raw or briefly boiled, nothing more.
2. The Miso That Came Back in a Dream
Cucumber usually meets a moromi miso in this kitchen, but this time I reached for Hatcho.
Set beside the rice miso and barley miso I grew up with, Hatcho occupies a different room entirely — darker in color, with a depth that sits somewhere between fermentation and something older than that.
Part of that strangeness may simply be unfamiliarity. I did not grow up near it.
And yet I have come to want exactly that strangeness — its salt, its particular weight on the tongue.
The first encounter was a pork cutlet dressed in the stuff, in a restaurant I found by accident.
The kitchen had sweetened it slightly. The meat was good. The miso sauce was better.
I had heard the name Hatcho before — in television dramas, usually — without ever tasting it.
After that meal, the restaurant kept returning while I slept. The table. The light. The plate.
I did not know I was capable of that kind of attachment to a flavor.
Two weeks later I was back at the same table without quite deciding to go.
Not long after, I ordered a supply by post — Kakukyu brand — and began making miso soup with it at home.
3. The Miso Warehouse
Curiosity led me to look more carefully into what Hatcho actually is.
It is a traditional soybean miso made only in Hachcho-machi, a district of Okazaki City in Aichi Prefecture.
The ingredients are two: soybeans and salt. The aging takes more than two years.
It is still produced in small quantities using methods that have not substantially changed, which means each batch carries the weight of accumulated time.
The only version I know is Kakukyu's.
One day I would like to go to Hachcho-machi and stand inside a miso warehouse — to see the great wooden vats, the stone weights stacked in their cone shapes, and to breathe whatever fills that air.
4. What Fits on the Tip of a Chopstick
A well-sharpened vegetable knife makes a difference to cucumber — the cross-section stays clean, and the cut surface holds its moisture a little longer.
Hatcho miso has the texture of stiff clay compared to moromi. What adheres to the tip of a chopstick is almost nothing — a pinch, a suggestion.
That density changes the arithmetic of the dish. The vegetable must be sized to meet such a small amount of miso on equal terms.
Here, I cut the cucumber thinner than usual, or into smaller pieces — finding the proportion where neither overwhelms the other.
5. Asparagus and Ham
- Asparagus and ham
- Cucumber with Hatcho miso
- Grilled salt-cured salmon
- Natto
Boil the asparagus. Cut it. Arrange it.
That is the entire recipe.
Asparagus has an affinity for oval plates that I find reliable even without skill — the proportions work themselves out, and a modest amount looks settled rather than sparse.
6. What the Roots Were Doing
The asparagus in this garden took three years from planting to produce spears of any real size.
Those first years were a lesson in waiting — the crown developing underground while nothing much appeared above.
- Leaf stalk growing
In a small garden, three years is a long time to hold a patch of ground for one plant. The temptation to fill the space with something else is real.
But when the season finally arrives, the young shoots push up through the soil with an energy that is almost startling.
Seeing them appear — each one a small event — I find myself smiling without meaning to.
And I say something to each one as I cut it. You did well. It comes out before I think about it.
Asparagus is a hungry plant. It needs regular feeding. But the pleasure of the harvest outweighs the obligation of the work, and I talk to the plants while I apply the fertilizer — grow big, send up as many heads as you can — which may say something about the kind of gardener I am.
- Harvest season has ended
7. The Foam Container
Natto's smell divides people cleanly into two camps.
For me it is an arrival — the signal that the meal is beginning.
The stickiness that others find off-putting is something we simply eat around here, without stirring, letting the beans stay as they are.
We also buy the smallest grain available. Chewing slowly, taking time, the flavor becomes something worth paying attention to.
Recently the white foam containers that natto comes in started to look out of place on the table — too provisional, too much like packaging.
So I began transferring the natto into a small ceramic bowl or a wide-mouthed yunomi before bringing it to the table. More washing up, but the table feels complete.
If the potter who made the bowl ever saw it used this way, they might not be pleased.
Even so — the eye finds nothing to object to, and eating becomes easier when nothing on the table asks to be looked away from.
When eggs come from someone who keeps good hens, I mix the natto and egg together in the bowl and spoon the whole thing over rice. That is a meal that requires no improvement.
8. Closing
「かぜのまう はっぽうやつの くきひしお」
[Kazé nomau happô yatsuno kouki hichiô]
Qu'as, Ze, Nos, Mât, Ut, Ha, Peau, Yas, Tsé, Nos, Coup, Qui, Hi, Shio.
「ゆめたがふ はっぽうやつの くきひしお」
[Yumétagou happô yatsuno kouki hichiô]
Yu, Mets, Ta, Gars, Fût, Ha, Peau, Yas, Tsé, Nos, Coup, Qui, Hi, Shio.
Nage du fruit, Battement de l’interstice, Bougie de visage.
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Note: This article includes ingredients derived from soybeans.
If you have concerns about allergies or other health considerations, please consult a qualified professional.
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References
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References used in this article: 料 01, 工 01
Audio data (sound): 2025_021_ja01
Audio data (reading): 2025_021_ja02 (in progress)
Microsoft Clipchamp: Brigitte, VOICEVOX: 四国めたん
End of Article
My hope is that something here finds its way to your table — a small surprise, or the faint echo of something already known.