[brahadeesh]

It's not unique to Persian cooking, but there is wisdom in most cultural foods. I have been cooking a lot during the pandemic and every month I discover a new fermented food that has "recently" been found to be a superfood - kombucha, kefir, kimchi, soy sauce, mole sauce, sourdough etc. That is not to talk about other ingredients like turmeric, chiles, lentils and other stuff that add nutritional value.

EDIT: I wanted to add something I just remembered from the Netflix docuseries "Cooked" - "If you were to eat grains and nothing but grains, you will die sooner rather than later from lack of one nutrient or another. But if you were to eat real fermented bread made from the same grains, you will live much longer". Something about fermentation is truly nourishing.

[dataviz1000]

I remember listening to an NPR story 2 or 3 decades ago which I can't find about how White people in the United States (probably referring to health food eating yuppies in NYC and Northern California) adopted a staple diet very close to an African American diet in the 40's and 50's while the modern African American diet more often included what White people were eating in the 40's and 50's.

If anyone has any links to stories about how diets have change by demographics over time in the United States, please share.

[fogdart]

Sweet potatoes?

[yongjik]

IMHO, they may be healthier than eating only white bread, but "recently been found to be superfood" is a euphemism for "this food now has enough consumers in your country to bootstrap a self-sustaining PR cycle."

Did you know kimchi is supposed to boost your immune system and protect you against COVID? Now you know - go buy some! (And please pay no attention to the high rate of colon cancers in Korea, which may or may not be related, who knows.)

[bionhoward]

I like the super good marketing thing, but...What makes you think kimchi is a more likely cause of that unsourced colon cancer claim than the massive amounts of tasty meat in Korean BBQ?

[yongjik]

Hmm... from the very scientific method of googling for news articles, you may be right. Should have used stomach cancer instead (another cancer prevalent in Korea) - for stomach, salty/spicy food is considered a potential reason, it seems.

[gameswithgo]

This may just be more an artifact that foods are complex enough that a great many foods can be characterized as super-foods. Also probably none of them really have any profound effect on overall health. If you get old you will have seen many, many dietary miracles come and go where nothing much came of them.

[firecall]

I always rather liked the original simple idea of Paleo style eating.

Which was unprocessed foods consumed in quantity and variation that maybe is a bit like our ancestors consumption patterns.

But sadly Paleo for co-opted by the Keto crowd and it's all about hi-fat diets and Lo-carb blah blah blah. :-)

[can16358p]

I agree with you, but a quick note for potential readers: most of the soy sauce from your grocery store has extreme amounts of salt in it, beware.

[brahadeesh]

Yes, you will want to look for "Shoyu" in a regular grocery store that will probably be made of fermented soy beans. You could also make the trip out to an Asian grocery store - a simple yet effective way to start an adventure :)

[cowmoo728]

Most American grocery store soy sauce is also not authentic soy sauce. Soy sauce has to be aged from soy, salt, wheat, and a fermentation starter. American grocery store soy sauce is typically salt water with flavor additives.

Ingredients for a cheap American soy sauce: soybean, corn, water, sugar, sodium benzoate, salt, caramel color, monosodium glutamate, citric acid, potassium sorbate.

[dasyatidprime]

As a big counterexample, Kikkoman is popular enough in the USA to carry in mainstream grocery stores, and is a legitimate soy sauce. I go to the Korean market here when I can for soy sauce (in which case I often get Sempio 501 or 701), but when I don't have time for a separate trip for some reason, I get Kikkoman from the big-box store and it's perfectly reasonable. The level of salt is still relevant, though.

If you start getting into different kinds of legit soy sauce then you'll find more subtle differences of course, and depending on what you're cooking, they may be relevant. I don't cook at home with enough precision for the difference between “primary” soy sauces to matter much, but if you start learning an actual cuisine, that's different.

(No affiliation.)

[Talanes]

I haven't been actually keeping track, but I can't recall a time I was in a store with only one brand of soy sauce and it wasn't Kikkoman. Maybe just because I'm in California though?

[wil421]

Most American stores have San-J brand sauces which are a better alternative. Doesn’t really stop a lot of people from picking the bad stuff.

[doublesocket]

Tamari is a good answer to this problem (soy sauce made without wheat). Depending on the brand it has less salt than regular soy sauce and, as it has a richer flavour, you need less of it.

[TedDoesntTalk]

I still want to try Japanese Natto but can't find it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natt%C5%8D

Supposed to taste quite bad for Westerners.

[blacksmith_tb]

I think most people who haven't tried it before wouldn't object to the taste of natto as much as its texture, it's got a very unusual kind of slimy+sticky quality that lets you pull long strings of slime between the soybeans. But people usually eat it with rice, and if you mix it up it's not quite as odd. I don't mind it, but I rarely eat it...

[gensym]

I tried it at a food court in a Japanese supermarket in the Chicago suburbs (Mitsuwa) Perhaps if you have any Japanese supermarkets near you you could find some.

I (who grew up in rural IL) really enjoyed the taste and the smell. The consistency took some getting used to.

[ummonk]

Having tried stinky tofu and been unable to stand it, I stay away from anything similar.

I rely on aged cheese to get my bacteria byproducts (esp. Vitamin K2).

[andy_ppp]

Stinky tofu in Taiwan smelt as though someone had burried their colostomy bag (adding maybe rubbish and some milk to curdle it) for a couple of months and opened it at the dinner table. Fetid doesn’t even cover it. I’m amazed you ate it. Natto by comparison is just a bit like gross cheese.

[trainsplanes]

Stinky tofu smells a little funky, but once you take a bite, it’s juicy and savory. Taiwanese stuff definitely stinks more, but the mainland Chinese varieties don’t really stink at all and retain a savory taste.

Natto literally has the smell and slimy, sticky texture of, well, semen. It’s easy to wonder whether someone left a bunch of used tissues out or if they simply forgot to toss out their used natto package.

[TedDoesntTalk]

> semen

Interestingly, natto is one of the few foods high in a substance called spermadine. Look it up. Supposedly contributes to longevity and supplements exist.

[TedDoesntTalk]

Thanks for the great description. Now I have to look up “stinky tofu” since I’ve never heard of it.

[wisty]

Stinky tofu is like the blue cheese of tofus. It's quite nice.

Natto ... I'm not such a fan.

[weaksauce]

good god was stinky tofu awful when i tried it. smelled like sock and tasted worse. I almost want to see if my tastes have changed enough over the years to appreciate it now but back then it was simply awful.

[TedDoesntTalk]

How do you know when it’s gone rancid?

[weaksauce]

it was an actual dish that is popular in china and not spoiled food. traditionally it's fermented.

[TedDoesntTalk]

I know. I’m asking if it goes bad, how would you even know when the smell is bad before it is rancid.

[wyre]

I have some Thai fermented tofu in my fridge. It tastes like a very strong soft cheese.

[gniv]

Here in NJ I could find it in an Asian supermarket (in the freezers).

[nerfhammer]

Go Go Curry in NYC has it

[chromaton]

In the 70's it was yogurt.

[tartoran]

Yogurt is still going strong, isn't it?

[Talanes]

So strong that it's a little odd to think about it as having once been trendy. For the three decades I've spent on this planet it's just always been there.

[yumraj]

Yeah, but now it has been made into a dessert with lots and lots of sugar that it’s unclear if it’s good or bad for faith in the sugared forms.