FreshPoint

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Heralded by some as the perfect food, SOYBEANS are the basis for protein-rich processed foods such as soy milk, tofu and tempeh. In her book “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone”, Deborah Madison calls the SOYBEAN “the cow of the Orient”. When blanched in salted water, fresh SOYBEANS become Edamame, a very popular snack in Japan and here in the U.S. Some restaurants here on the West Coast serve freshly blanched Edamame while still warm and sprinkled with coarsely ground sea salt. Maybe part of the draw is how fun blanched, salted SOYBEANS (Edamame) are to eat. Take the whole pod, put it in your mouth, hold on to the stem end, and pull the 8 out of the pod with your teeth. According to school children, an Edamame bean also makes great new-age pea-shooter. I’ve heard on good authority that by squeezing a SOYBEAN pod with your fingers at just the right angle, you can hit the child across the lunch table from you with a fair amount of accuracy.