[Sca-cooks] Period Japanese or other oriental soup recipes

[Solveig Throndardottir]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Solveig!

> My son is seeking to make a soup with seaweed but I am not sure if  
> this is period.  Does anyone have any period recipes?

Dashi is a basic ingredient in Japanese cooking. It is made by  
boiling konbu (a kind of seaweed) and dried fish. The dashi
is then strained and used as a basic stock for making soup and other  
things. The highest class dried fish is called
katsuo bushi and looks a bit like large pink wood chips. You can also  
use dried sardines or other dried fish. Soup is one
of the basic components of a Japanese meal. Sei Shonagon mentions  
soup in her griping about how carpenters eat.

Regardless, you can add miso, tofu, mushrooms, or other stuff to your  
dashi. Do not boil your soup after adding miso.

If you absolutely can not stand fish or are a very strict vegetarian  
you can substitute dried shitake for the katsuo bushi.

Ryorimonogatari has an entire section on soup. Many of these contain  
fish, fowl, or meat along with some vegetables.
However, there appear to b a few which contain only vegetables. For  
example, if you wish to avoid adding meat, you
can use such things as tofu, daikon, hinoki or oyster mushrooms, &c.  
to distinguish your soup.

Your Humble Servant
Solveig Throndardottir
Amateur Scholar