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The story
Former TOKIO member Masahiro Matsuoka (49) talked about miso soup on the October 4 broadcast of NACK5’s “Masahiro Matsuoka’s Colorful Saitama Frontier,” confessing that he’s “the type who doesn’t need ingredients in miso soup.” Instead of solid ingredients, he revealed he likes to vary the dashi — “today it’s dried sardines,” “today it’s bonito.” The topic came up after a listener asked whether he drinks miso soup down to the last drop of broth. On 5ch, this sparked a split of opinions: some countered that “ingredients make great dashi too,” others formed a “minimalist camp” who say wakame and tofu are all you need, and still others argued for loading up on ingredients for nutrition. The discussion even expanded into a cooking-method debate over whether it’s okay to let miso soup come to a boil.
10/4 (Sun) 15:51
Former TOKIO member Masahiro Matsuoka (49) appeared on the October 4 broadcast of NACK5’s “Masahiro Matsuoka’s Colorful Saitama Frontier” (Sundays 7:00 AM), where he opened up about his particular approach to miso soup.
A listener sent in a message saying, “Do you drink your miso soup down to the last drop? Now that I’m older, I’ve stopped finishing the broth on ramen.” Matsuoka immediately replied, “Miso soup is literally called ‘soup’ (shiru), so yes, I drink it.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Big, buff guys doing manual labor don't get enough, while out-of-shape guys sitting in air conditioning all day get too much
Sure, it wrecks the miso flavor, but it's tasty
Chef Doi says that's perfectly fine too
It may be 'just cooking,' but cooking is cooking
That holds true for light-colored misos like Shinshu miso
Bean miso barely has any alcohol-derived aroma to begin with, so boiling it is no problem
If boiling were off-limits for every type of miso, dishes like simmered offal stew or miso-nikomi udon wouldn't even work
wakame and tofu
fried tofu and daikon
potato and long green onion
that sort of thing
I consider pork miso soup and kenchinjiru (vegetable soup) a different category from regular miso soup
• potato
• shiitake mushroom
If you're feeling sick from the sodium even the day after you ate it, isn't that a crazy overdose? lol
Are there really people who leave it unfinished when it's not even that much liquid?
Right, I've never heard of anyone just eating the solid bits and ditching the rest.
Wakame and scallions are plenty for miso soup
Don't need fried tofu or regular tofu or any of that
Ano-chan's also long been in the 'don't need ingredients, broth alone is fine' camp
Sorry (for derailing a bit)
If it's something lavish like shijimi clam miso soup or pork miso soup, then sure, I'll eat it
But a soup that's nothing but salt has no business being part of a meal. It comes standard with Japanese food, but
that's exactly why I hate the throwaway miso soup you get as a side at beef-bowl chains or set-meal diners
I have zero preferences
That alone makes it packed with nutrition
stuff like carrots and daikon, the tough ones
I always forget the tofu though
Miso soup is delicious no matter what you throw in
> He confessed that when it comes to miso soup, he's 'the type who doesn't need ingredients.' Instead, he likes to do the dashi — 'today it's dried sardines,' 'today it's bonito'
Wait, but ingredients ARE dashi too, right? Vegetables give off a sweet dashi of their own — by that logic you'd be trashing shijimi soup or clam soup entirely
I mean, a bowl of ramen with zero toppings should cost like 380 yen
And they just slap on one or two slices of meat and some junk toppings to rip you off for over 1000 yen
I barely drink the broth itself
It's not that I'm watching my sodium or anything like that
Even with the same ingredients, there's something different about it compared to a soy-sauce-based clear soup — I wonder why that is
Background and Talking Points
Masahiro Matsuoka has continued doing radio work as a former TOKIO member since the group’s dissolution, and “Colorful Saitama Frontier” is a NACK5 (Saitama) program. His “don’t need ingredients” comment about miso soup stems from a culinary focus on varying the dashi itself — switching between dried sardines, bonito, and so on. What split the thread wasn’t just a matter of taste, but extended into a cooking-science question: whether it’s okay to let miso soup actually boil. Lighter misos like Shinshu miso are said to lose their alcohol-derived aroma easily when heated, while bean misos (such as Hatcho miso) are said to hold up better to heat — a distinction by miso type that’s surprisingly little known. How people interpreted the “do you drink it all” question itself also revealed differing attitudes toward sodium intake and health awareness tied to age, suggesting that even with the same bowl of miso soup, preferences diverge widely by generation and lifestyle.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Hayabusa+) thread “Masahiro Matsuoka: miso soup is for “people who don’t need ingredients” — his particular way of making “the ultimate miso soup,” ‘I like that kind of miso soup’.”
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