Kinema is one of the important components of thediverse food culture of the ethnic communities in theEastern Himalayan regions of Nepal, the Darjeelinghills and Sikkim in India, the northeastern hills ofIndia and Bhutan. Kinema is a whole-soybeanfermented food with a sticky texture, gray tan in colorand flavorful. It is similar to Japanese natto.

Hypothesis on the Origin of KinemaThe common word kinema is derived from “kinambaa”of the Limboo dialect (Limboo, being one of the majorethnic communities of Nepalis), “ki” means fermentedand “nambaa” means flavor. The kingdom of“Limbuwan” (presently the eastern Nepal districts ofTherathum, Taplejung, Panchthar, Dhankuta, and Ilam)was established by the Limboo earlier than the seventhcentury and remained independent till the unification ofNepal in the seventeenth century. Though there is nohistorical document on the origin of kinema, it is certainthat among the Nepalis, the Limboo started productionand consumption of this unique fermented flavorfulsoybean food. The unification of Nepal, the existence ofa mixed society of multiethnic communities and themigration of people from one place to another mighthave resulted in the spread of kinema making and eatingto other related Nepali communities such as the Rai,Tamang, Gurung, Mangar, etc. However, even nowkinema is not popular among the Brahmin Nepalis.Other mountain ethnic communities in the EasternHimalayas now share the delicacy of kinema. In Sikkimthe Lepchas call it satlyangser and the Bhutias call itbari.

Methods of Preparation In the Sikkim Himalayas, during the preparation ofkinema (see next page), small-sized (up to 6mm)yellow-coated seeds of local cultivars of soybeans aresoaked in spring water overnight and cooked by boilinguntil they can be pressed easily. Excess water is drainedoff and the seeds are cracked lightly by a wooden pestle(locally called a muslo) in a wooden mortar (locallycalled an okhli) to split the cotyledons, probably toaccelerate fermentation and increase the surface area foraerobic spore-forming bacteria. Grits are placed in abamboo basket lined with locally grown fresh fern fronds

{Glaphylopteriopsis erubescens (Well ex. Hook.)Ching}, covered with a jute bag and left to fermentnaturally at ambient temperatures (25˚-40˚C) for two tothree days above an earthen-kitchen oven. In somevillages, about one percent of fresh firewood ash isadded to the cooked soybeans during production. Ineastern Nepal, dark-brown-coated seeds of soybean areused to make kinema. Instead of fern leaves, Ficus andbanana leaves are used as wrapping materials. Othermethods remain the same. Completion of fermentationis indicated by the appearance of a white viscous massand a typical kinema flavor with a slight ammonia-likeodor. The “shelf life” of fresh kinema is two to threedays during summer and a maximum of one week inwinter without refrigeration. Sun-dried kinema is storedfor several months at room temperature.

The preparation of kinema varies from place to placeand is still restricted to household level. It is interestingto note that the mountain women use their indigenousknowledge of food production exclusively to preparekinema. This unique indigenous knowledge of kinema-making is protected as a hereditary right and is passedfrom mother to daughter.

10 FOOD CULTURE FOOD CULTURE 11

KinemaJyoti Prakash Tamang Ph.D., Professor, Sikkim Government College/Director, Darjeeling Centre for Traditional Food Research

Kinema

Kinema

Natto stirred and sticky

E F HG

A B C D

Soybeans Selection

10-12 hours

10˚C orbelow 24 hours

2 millibarsfor 20 min.

Spore of nattomold103 spores/1gsoybeans

40˚C for16-18 hours

Washing Soaking Steaming Inoculation Filling Fermen-tation

Cooling MaturingFinishedProduct(Natto)

Packing Distribution

Fig. 3Production of Natto

Feature: Fermented Soybean Foods in Daily LifeFeature

Varieties of natto packagesA. Wheat straw wrapB. Inside wrapC. Kyogi (thin wood shavings)D. Inside wrapE. Boat-shaped containerF. Inside boatG. PSP containerH. Paper cup

Kan Kiuchi Ph.D.Born in Tokyo in 1940, Dr. Kan Kiuchi is now aprofessor at the Department of Food Science andNutrition at Kyoritsu Women’s University. Hegraduated from the Faculty of Agriculture atTokyo University and later received his Ph.D. inAgricultural Chemistry from the university’sagricultural graduate school. After joining the

Food Research Institute (today known as theGeneral Food Research Center) of the formerMinistry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, heworked as chief researcher of the Department ofApplied Microbiology, and as Director of theThird Research Laboratory of MicrobialApplications.

ReferencesEbine, H., Ishima, N., Kiuchi, K., Ohta, T., Takabayashi, T. “Miso Lipids and Relations Between Free Fatty Acids and Quality of Miso.” Nippon Shokuhin

Kogyo Gakkaishi 24 (1977): 295-299.Kanai, Y., Kimura, M., Kiuchi, K., Miura, N., Muramatsu, K., and Yoshida, K. “Production of Natto with High Elastase Activity.” Nippon Shokuhin

Kogyo Gakkaishi 42 (1995): 575-582. Kanai, Y., H-R, Kim, Kiuchi, K., Muramatsu, K., Takeyasu, M., and Tanaka, T. “Manufacture of Chungkuk-jang with Elastase Activity.” Food Science

and Technology, International 3 (1997): 251-256.Kanai,Y., Kimura, M., Kiuchi, K., Muramatsu, K., Yamawake, N. and Yoshimi, T. “Purification and Crystallization of a New Bacillus Subtilis Elastase.”

Home Economics of Japan 51 (2000): 1127-1135.Katsumata, R., Kiuchi, K., Muramatsu, K., Tanaka, T., and Watanabe, S. “Natto Manufacturing Methods Employing Natto Bacilli with High Elastase

Activity and Its Mutants.” Proceedings of The Third International Soybean Processing and Utilization Conference, Tsukuba, Japan, October 15-20,2000. Ed. K. Saio. 333-334.

Katsumata, R., Kiuchi, K., Muramatsu, K., Tanaka, T., and Watanabe, S. “Improvement of the Itohiki-Natto Manufacturing Process of EmployingCommercial Natto Starters.” Proceedings of The Third International Soybean Processing and Utilization Conference, Tsukuba, Japan, October 15-20, 2000. Ed. K. Saio. 335-336.

12 FOOD CULTURE

Kinema DishesKinema is eaten as a side-dish curry with cooked rice.The delicacy of kinema can be perceived from itsappealing flavor and sticky texture. The most commontraditional recipe for kinema curry is as shown above.To prepare: Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan and addchopped onion and fry until it becomes tender. Addtomatoes and turmeric powder and fry for two minutes.Add fresh kinema, salt, and sliced green chilies and fryfor three to five minutes. Pour in a little water to make athick curry, and cook for five to seven minutes. Kinemacurry is now ready for serving with boiled rice. Sun-dried kinema is sometimes mixed with leafy vegetablesto make mixed curry as a side dish.

Socio-economic FactorsKinema production is an income generator for somefamilies. It is sold in all local periodical markets, called“haats” in these regions, by rural women. Usually, it issold by volume measured in a small silver mugcontaining 150-200 grams of kinema, and packed in theleaves of Ficus hookeriana, and then tied loosely withstraw. Polyethylene bags are not used for packingkinema. One kilogram of kinema costs about 30 Indianrupees (72 yen). An average of five kilograms is sold byeach seller in a local market and brings a profit of aboutforty percent. This small profit is spent on children’seducation and on domestic expenses. This trade hasbeen protected as a hereditary right passed from motherto daughter. Though there is a good market for kinema,and some rural women are involved in it for incomegeneration, processing is still restricted to the individualhousehold; there is no organized processing unit or factory.An inexpensive and ready-to-use pulverized starter culture

of Bacillus subtilis has been developed for kinemaproduction, which can be adapted to local conditions formore income generation.

Microbiology and Nutritive Value of KinemaThe heat resistant spore-forming bacterium Bacillussubtilis, lactic acid bacteria such as Enterococcusfaecium, and a few types of yeast, Candida parapsilosisand Geotrichum candidum, for instance, have beenrecovered from kinema. However, Bacillus subtilis isthe dominant microflora in kinema fermentation,followed by Enterococcus faecium. The rich microbialdiversity in various sources, particularly the soybeans,equipment and leaves used as wrapping materials,harnesses indigenous microbiota for the spontaneousfermentation of kinema. The rural practices of notcleaning the mortar and pestle, and using fresh leavesused as wrapping materials, significantly correlate withtheir indigenous knowledge of “microbiology” topreserve and supplement microorganisms for thespontaneous fermentation of kinema without usingstarter cultures.

On a protein cost per kilogram basis, kinema is thecheapest source of plant protein and cheaper thananimal and dairy products. During kinema production,soya-proteins, which have been denatured by thecooking process, are hydrolyzed by proteolytic enzymesproduced by Bacillus subtilis into peptides and aminoacids, enhancing digestibility. A remarkable increase inwater-soluble nitrogen, trichloroacetic acid-solublenitrogen contents, total amino acids, free amino acidsand mineral content occurs during kinema fermentation,and subsequently enriches the nutritional value of theproduct. Kinema contains (per 100 grams dry matter):

serves 6Kinema 250 gOnion 1 (chopped)Tomato 1 (sliced)Green chilies 3 Turmeric powder 1/4 tablespoon Salt 1 teaspoon

KINEMA CURRY Ingredients

FOOD CULTURE 13

Soybeans (100g)

Cleaned and washed

Soaked in water overnight

Drained off; clean water added

Cooked by boiling

Excess water drained off

Lightly cracked in a wooden mortar with a wooden pestle

Wrapped in fern leaves, kept in a bamboo basket

Fermented (25˚-45˚C, 2-3 days)

Kinema (~230g)

Fried to make curry

Flow chart of the traditional

method of kinema production

practiced in Sikkim

Sprinkled with wood ash (up to 1%)

Cooked soybeans are pestled.

Wrapped in fern leaves, the grits are kept in

a bamboo basket, covered with a jute bag.

Firewood ash is added.

Cooked soybean grits are placed in fern

leaves.

Feature: Fermented Soybean Foods in Daily LifeFeature

14 FOOD CULTURE FOOD CULTURE 15

protein 48 grams, fat 17 grams, carbohydrates 28 gramsand 478 kilocalories.

Transition in Food CultureThe food culture in the Eastern Himalayas shows atransition to a mixed food culture containing both a“rice-soybean-alcoholic beverage diet,” the characteristicfood culture of Southeast and East Asia, and the “wheat-milk-non-alcoholic beverage diet” of Central and WestAsia. This is seen in the case of fermented soybeanfoods, which are prepared and consumed in the EasternHimalayas and the adjoining foothills, such as kinema ineastern Nepal, the Darjeeling hills, Sikkim and Bhutan,aakhuni in Nagaland, hawaijar in Manipur, turangbai inMeghalaya, and bekanthu in Mizoram. Consumption offermented soybean food is uncommon in Central andWest Asia, and even in other parts of the Indiansubcontinent. These fermented soybean foods aresimilar to the natto of Japan, chungkok-jang of Korea,thua-nao of northern Thailand and pe-poke of Myanmar.

The diversity of Bacillus-dominating fermented soybeanfoods of Asia needs to be studied to trace the antiquityand similarity in the food cultures of Asia.

Jyoti Prakash Tamang Ph.D.Born in Darjeeling (India) in 1961, Dr. JyotiPrakash Tamang holds a Ph.D. degree inmicrobiology from North Bengal University inIndia. He did post-doctoral research in kinemaand natto at the National Food ResearchInstitute, Tsukuba, Japan, under a UnitedNations University-Kirin fellowship in 1994-95.He is one of the growing authorities on the

traditional fermented foods and beverages of the Himalayas, particularly kinema , mostlyconcerning microbial diversity. He has publishedmore than forty research papers in national andinternational journals. He is professor at SikkimGovernment College and also president of theDarjeeling Centre for Traditional Food Research.

ReferencesHesseltine, C.W., Sarkar, P.K. and Tamang, J.P. “Traditional Fermented Foods and Beverages of Darjeeling Hills and Sikkim—A Review.” J Science of

Food and Agriculture 44 (1988): 375-385.Nikkuni, S. “Natto, Kinema and Thua-nao: Traditional Non-Salted Fermented Soybean Foods in Asia.”Farming Japan 31(4) (1997): 27-36.Nikkuni, S. and Tamang, J.P. “Effect of Temperatures During Pure Culture Fermentation of Kinema.” World J Microbiology and Biotechnology 14

(1998): 847-850.Tamang, J.P. “Fermented Soybean Products in India.” The Proceedings of the Second International Soybean Processing and Utilization Conference,

Kesetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand, 1996. Ed. A. Buchanan. 189-193. Tamang, J.P. “Development of Pulverized Starter for Kinema Production.” J Food Science and Technology 36 (5) (1999): 475-478.Tamang, J.P. “Case Study on Socio-economical Prospective of Kinema, a Traditional Fermented Soybean Food.” The Proceedings of the 1997

International Conference on Traditional Foods, CFTRI, Mysore, India March 6-8, 1997. Ed. Director, CFTRI. 2000. 180-185.Tamang, J.P. “Microbial Diversity Associated with Natural Fermentation of Kinema.” Proceedings of the Third International Soybean Processing and

Utilization Conference, Tsukuba, Japan, October 15-20, 2000. Ed. K. Saio. 713-717.

Northeast INDIA

CHINA (Tibet)

MYANMAR

BANGLADESH

NEPAL

BHUTAN

Aakhuni

Hawaijar

Bekanthu

Turangbai

Arunachal Pradesh

NagalandAssam

Meghalaya

Manipur

MizoramTripura

Darjeeling

SikkimKinema

Pe-poke

Kinema Diversity in the Eastern Himalayan Regions

Feature: Fermented Soybean Foods in Daily LifeFeature

Japanese Food in Holland:The Global Trend SpreadsKatarzyna J. Cwiertka Ph.D.Leiden University, the Netherlands

Katarzyna J. Cwiertka has for more than a decade conducted research in the field ofJapanese food culture. Since acquiring a Ph.D. from Leiden University in 1999, she hasalso worked on a number of projects dealing with East Asian food habits. Dr. Cwiertkais the co-editor of the forthcoming volume Asian Food: The Global and the Local(Curzon Press 2001) and the coordinator of the Kikkoman Food Forum to be held in theNetherlands. Her most recent publications in English include “Culinary Globalizationand Japan” in Japan Echo vol. 26 no. 3; and “From Yokohama to Amsterdam: Meidi-yaand Dietary Change in Modern Japan” in Japanstudien vol. 12 (N. Liscutin & R. Haak,eds.), IUDICIUM 2000.

About Food Culture from the Netherlands 3

Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and other areas with highconcentrations of Japanese immigrants began to caterfor non-Japanese customers, and that new Japaneserestaurants began to open outside these areas.

The ecology movement initiated by the Americanhippies in the late 1960s was the first step in the globaldiffusion of Japanese food. The rediscovery of organicfoods and a growth of interest in alternative diets,traditional Asian foodways in particular, amongAmericans provided Japanese cuisine with a spectrumof new possibilities for expansion. The progress ofnutritional knowledge, which at about the same timebegan to recognize the negative impact of heavy, meat-based diets on human health, was another importantfactor that helped to promote Japanese cuisine in theWest. American dietitians began to recommend the low-fat and low-cholesterol Japanese-style diet as one of thehealthiest in the world, and this image accompanied thecuisine as it diffused worldwide.

The fashion of eating Japanese food, sushi inparticular, that first flourished in California, was withina couple of years picked up by people in large cities ofthe east coast in the U.S. and gradually spread amongthe European capitals. By the end of the twentiethcentury, Japanese food had acquired a firm position inthe Western culinary repertoire.

The spread among Europeans of a fashion for diningJapanese-style was fuelled, next to the health aspect, bythe worldwide distribution of Japanese electronicproducts and cars and the rise of Japan’s prestige in theglobal arena. However, the role of the United States inthe global diffusion of Japanese cuisine was at least asimportant. It can safely be assumed that sushi andteppanyaki2 would have never become so popular inEurope without the added value of being American foodfads.

Japanese Food Heads WestThe twentieth century was a very turbulent period in thehistory of Japanese cuisine. Along with economic andtechnological advancement,accompanied by urbanizationand other social changes, Japanese foodways underwenta transition whose importance can be compared to theculinary borrowings from China in earlier times. Themanner in which food had been produced, distributed,prepared and consumed in Japan for centuries has alteredconsiderably in the last hundred years, in particular sincethe economic boom of the 1960s.1

The twentieth century was in the first place the timein which Japanese cuisine accumulated influences fromthe West and accommodated itself to the needs of amodernizing society. However, it was also the periodwhen Japanese food began to spread beyond the homeisles. This process was initiated by the migration ofJapanese people to East and Southeast Asia and Southand North America. It intensified from the 1970sonwards, when the Japanese economy started to conquerforeign markets.

The first Japanese restaurant outside Asia opened inSan Francisco in 1887, but eventually Los Angelesbecame the center of Japanese food culture in NorthAmerica. By the early twentieth century, a Japanesequarter with the name Little Tokyo had developed inLos Angeles’ Chinatown, containing about fortyJapanese restaurants, next to numerous Japanesebutchers and vegetable dealers (Koyama 1985). Similardevelopments were observed in other areas with largeaccumulations of Japanese immigrants, such as Hawaiiand Brazil (Mori 2000). A characteristic feature of theseefficiently operated culinary infrastructures was the factthat they were targeted exclusively at the immigrantJapanese community. It was not until the 1970s that theJapanese restaurants operating in San Francisco, S~ao