Soybeans: Bet You Can't Eat Just One By AMANDA HESSER September 8, 1999 [T] he Chinese call them mao dou, or hairy beans. The Japanese call them edamame, or branch beans. Neither name, however, expresses even faintly the fondness those cultures have for the soybean. Like the peanut in America, the soybean is a humble home-grown legume that everyone eats -- often as a snack -- and most adore. Soybeans are earning increasing fondness in this country, too. Enter any Japanese restaurant in Manhattan -- especially now, at the height of the season -- and you are sure to spot a bowl of them, piled high and disappearing quickly. Served in the pod, they are eaten by scraping the oval beans out of the salty, fuzzy pod with your teeth. They're so tasty they're addictive. Trader Joe's, a national grocery chain, began carrying frozen soybeans 10 months ago. Sales now rival those of frozen corn and broccoli. Sales at Sunrich Inc. in Hope, Minn., the largest producer of organic and genetically unmodified green vegetable soybeans in the country, have risen 25 percent in each of the last two years. "We sell out as much as we can grow," said Allan Routh, the president of Sunrich, which sells soybeans mostly to large food manufacturers, health food stores and Asian markets. Recently, the company has begun distributing the beans, grown mainly in Iowa and Minnesota, to mainstream grocery chains. For decades, pigs were the beneficiaries of most soybeans cultivated in the United States. Other soy products, like tofu and soy milk, had for years been treated as esoteric health foods. Now that soy is being heralded for healthfulness, that perception is reversing. Soybeans are remarkable: they are 36 percent protein, high in vitamin C and abundant in the plant-derived hormones called phytoestrogens. Health, however, is not the sole driving force behind the new interest in soybeans that are sold whole, which are a different variety from those used to make tofu and are unlike the ones grown for animal feed. Next to a bag of chips, soybeans in the pod happen to be the world's easiest hors d'oeuvre. Simply buy a bag of the frozen beans (or sweet beans, as they are sometimes labeled), boil them for a few minutes, drain, cool and pile them into a bowl. This is how they are prepared in Japan, where they are served in practically every bar. In New York, edamame appears on the menus of most Japanese restaurants, usually among the appetizers. It also shows up on Korean and Chinese menus, as well as on ones that are not Asian. At Avenue, soybeans are mixed with cucumber, lemongrass, red onions and vinaigrette and served with fried oysters. They are paired with roasted suckling pig, corn and summer savory at Maison. At Gourmet Garage, they are mixed into a salad with shrimp, rosemary, olive oil and lemon juice. In Japan, soybeans are sold in markets on the branch with their roots still attached -- thus the name branch bean. "You need gardening gloves to pull the beans off," said Elizabeth Andoh, the founder of a Taste of Culture, a culinary arts and cultural program in Tokyo. "They're really prickly." A copper brown fuzz clings to the outside of soybean pods and must be removed before eating. To get it off, Ms. Andoh said, Japanese cooks put the beans in a suribachi, a ceramic mortar with a grooved interior. Then they sprinkle on coarse salt and rub the beans against the mortar so that the fuzz sticks in the grooves, leaving just the bright-green pods. With this technique, there is no need to salt the water when boiling them. All this work may be considered a necessity in Japan, but in America, it's tough to sell. Julie and Davie C.Y. Yen, owners of the Hydro Garden Farm in Yaphank, N.Y., found that they had to remove the fuzz and even boil the beans to sell them at their stand at the Greenmarket in Manhattan's Union Square. "People didn't want to do the work," Ms. Yen said. Still, their sales have grown about 30 percent annually in the three years they have been selling them. The beans are also sold fresh around Chinatown and at specialty Asian markets like Yaohan Plaza in Edgewater, N.J. If you can't find fresh, you can always find frozen, in or out of the pod, which are lightly blanched and need less cooking. Most are imported from China or Taiwan. Markets like Eli's Manhattan and Fairway also now carry cooked edamame in the pod in the sushi aisles. But fresh soybeans in season are sweeter and cleaner tasting and have more snap when you bite into them. Frozen ones lack the sweetness and have a starchier, almost glutinous texture. Wangsheng Li, an owner of the Evergreen Shanghai Restaurants in Manhattan's midtown and Chinatown, refuses to serve the frozen variety, so soybeans are on the menu for just a few months a year. Freezing them, he said, "ruins the texture." He is fussy perhaps, but he grew up in Shanghai, where the beans were treated like a summer vegetable -- something eaten almost every day in season because they were not available the rest of the year. They were eaten plain or boiled in water, sometimes with rice wine lees or anise. Henry Ford brought soybeans to the United States from Asia in the 1940s, said Carol Miles, a vegetable researcher at the Washington State University Cooperative Extension. He was the first to push their production, offering them to his employees as food supplements after World War II. As in Asia, soybeans are a warm-weather plant, with harvests stretching from July through October. They grow on a low leafy plant like green beans and are picked fairly young, before the beans get too plump and starchy. Some growers, Ms. Miles said, have been picking field soybeans grown for animal feed while they are young and selling them as edamame. But there is a difference: vegetable soybeans -- those grown to be eaten as a vegetable -- have a much fatter bean and a brighter pod, and taste better. For all their inroads into American restaurants, fresh soybeans are most traditional in Asian cooking. At Evergreen, they are stir-fried with paper-thin strips of soybean sheet and pickled Chinese cabbage. At Menchanko-tei, a Japanese restaurant in midtown, whole beans are mixed with bay scallops, shrimp and scallions, dipped in tempura batter and fried in lacy fritters. In Japanese restaurants, though, soybeans are still mostly served plain. And cold. Eating them cold from the pod has been traditional since the 17th century in Japan. Mame gohan, the Japanese version of rice and beans, is at least that old. The beans are simmered in dashi seasoned with mirin and light soy sauce, and then the same cooking liquid is used for the rice. Before serving, the beans and rice are folded together, with a light dusting of salt and black sesame seeds. For a first taste, though, none of these dishes will do. Boil water. Wedge open a beer. And eat soybeans the easiest way, as a snack, slipping them from their shells with your teeth, bean by salty bean. ----------------------- SOYBEANS IN THE POD Adapted from "Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art" by Shizuo Tsuji (Kodansha, 1980) > Time: 30 minutes 4 cups young green fresh soybean pods 2 tablespoons coarse salt. 1. In a large mixing bowl, combine soybeans with salt. With your hands, rub soybeans with salt. Let stand 15 minutes. 2. Fill a large pot with about 3 quarts of water, and bring to a boil. Add salted beans, and boil until pods are tender, 7 to 10 minutes. 3. Drain pods in a colander, and transfer to a serving bowl. Serve hot or at room temperature. Yield: 4 servings. RICE WITH EDAMAME Adapted from Elizabeth Andoh Time: 45 minutes 1 or more packages instant dashi, mixed according to package instructions to yield at least 2 cups of dashi broth 2 teaspoons mirin, sake or dry sherry 1 teaspoon low-sodium Japanese soy sauce Kosher salt 3/4 cup shelled frozen soybeans (edamame) 1 1/2 cups short-grain white rice 1 small piece of kombu (kelp), optional 2 tablespoons black sesame seeds. 1. In a medium saucepan, combine 2 cups dashi broth, mirin, soy sauce and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil over high heat. Add edamame, reduce heat to medium, and cook 4 minutes. Place a colander over a medium heatproof bowl, and pour in contents of saucepan. Reserve broth and beans separately. 2. Place rice in a bowl, and rinse with cold water until water runs clear. Drain rice well in a fine strainer. In a medium saucepan, combine rice, reserved broth and kombu. 3. Cover saucepan, and place over high heat. When lid jiggles and foam begins to appear at its edges (in 3 to 4 minutes), reduce heat to medium and cook 10 minutes. Raise heat to high for 30 seconds, and then turn it off. Immediately remove kombu from pan and add edamame; do not stir. Cover pan, and remove from heat. Let sit 10 minutes. 4. With a wooden paddle or fork, mix beans into rice. Scoop rice into serving bowls, and sprinkle each portion with a teaspoon of black sesame seeds and a little salt. Serve immediately. Yield: 6 servings. ----------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company