an interesting history is here:
http://www.soyinfocenter.com/HSS/miso1.php
And how did you make it, anyway?
You can find a recipe to make it here:
http://www.soya.be/make-miso.php
(If you check the sidebar, you can find recipes to make tofu and soymilk, too)
And how did people usually make rice (not usually steamed this early, especially if you were cooking at a fire pit instead of the just introduced cooking stoves)...
And I ended up.....ordering a book! The Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking, which among other things, talks about the evolution of a lot of cooking things, including Miso.
And, I preordered the new release of How to Wrap 5 Eggs, which is about traditional Japanese packaging techniques: to quote from the person who recommended it:
A wonderful collection of traditional packaging techniques, almost all of which are food related. Each entry gets its own full page, usually just a full-page photograph with expalanatory notes assembled in the back of the book.
Detail Demon is purring this morning. How something that looks so snake like can purr is beyond me, but thus does the detail demon....