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Tofu In A SoyNutshell:
April Showers Bring One Pot
by Rachel Clark Caudill, from the April 2006 newsletter
April is an abundant month for me. My firstborn son, Avery, arrived on April 10, five years ago. My heart is filled with such gratitude for his presence—and my mother-love-driven transformation—that April has become, for me, a poignant and powerful physical cue to gratitude. The way the sun awakens in its rising slant across the sky; the simultaneously warm and cooling life-giving rains; the location in the darkness of space from which the Earth is smiling toward the Sun. All these triggers breathe the winds of April into my cells, and reconnect me with the very first moments that Avery graced us with his arrival on this earth.
And everywhere I look are reminders of growth, abundance, and unity. The sun stretches and yawns from behind April showers, and the earth sings abundance. The grass breathes chlorophyll into millions of shimmering green blades, winter wheat sparkles emeralds across the Palouse fields, my friends and neighbors pour outdoors to reunite in the soaking warmth of the sun, and flowers—pure beauty shorn from the eternal breath of wind, sun, earth and water—emerge to greet us.
Everywhere I look the same winds, the same breath, the same sun, the same earth, unite me with Every Living Thing. And my cells, my blood, my heart, reconnect with the throbbing universal pulse of energy that animates each of us.
I am grateful for April, and her tender and bighearted reminder of my unity to you. And to (tongue-in-cheek) tofu!
It’s no wonder, then, that I found myself craving one pot as I sat down to this column on the spring Equinox, a day evoking the eternal cycles of the Earth and the inevitable birth of spring. One pot—also known as nabemono—is an ancient Japanese ritual wherein a variety of food is served in community. Whether it is family or local community, the one pot symbolizes, for me, a reminder of our inevitable connection to each other and to the earth’s abundant foods that grace our tables.
According to the Free Dictionary, “Eating together is considered an important feature of nabemono; Japanese people believe that eating from one pot makes for a closer friendship. The Japanese thus say, Nabe o kakomu ("sitting around the pot"), implying that sharing nabemono will create warm relations between the diners who eat together from the shared pot.” (from http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Nabemono)
In gratitude, then, I offer you a simple, heartwarming one pot dish, with my sincere hope that it will bring you joy and a taste of unity in friendship, family, community, and in the interconnected web of all existence.
After all, we are all one (pot?).
Assemble:
~10 C water
2-3 pieces dried kombu seaweed, chopped
6-8 dried shitake mushrooms, chopped
1 bunch spinach, stemmed and chopped
1 carrot, chopped
½-1 block tofu, chopped into small cubes
2/3 C daikon radish, shredded
2 lemons, sliced into wedges
¼ cup soy sauce, plus additional for serving
4-6 servings buckwheat soba noodles, cooked and placed into awaiting serving bowls
Optional: 1 C shredded, parboiled chicken or 1 dozen cherrystone clams
Bring about 10 C water to a near boil. Sprinkle in a handful of chopped, dried kombu seaweed or other flavorful seaweed. Hold heat to just below boiling for 5-10 minutes so the seaweed exudes its essence into the water, but is not scalded by boiling. Then remove the seaweed and compost it, or nibble on it as you prepare your one pot. Alternatively, you can use vegetable stock.
Next, toss in the mushrooms, carrots, tofu, and the meat if you choose. Squeeze the juice from 1 lemon into the broth, and add the ¼ C soy sauce. If you are using clams, give them at least 5 minutes to cook before removing the broth from your heat source. Just before serving, throw in the spinach.
Now, ladle this delicious reminder of unity, over each of your awaiting serving bowls. Serve each with chopsticks, a wedge or two of lemon, and some shredded daikon radish. Have soy sauce on hand for enhancing the pot’s flavor.
United by nourishment may you and your community of life—whatever that may mean to you—enjoy!
If you are a true seeker of living culinary history, then you'll want to create your one pot authentically. Heat a big, ceramic bowl (your “pot”) with hot water. Once warmed, place the pot filled with the broth onto your table with the various other ingredients assembled in a circle around the pot. You and your community, be it family or guests, can add the ingredients together. However, most Japanese one pots (including this one) require additional cooking at the table, so unless you have a stand-alone cooking device, I advise that you complete the one pot on your stovetop.
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