natto for breakfast...

...is actually very delicious.


I had some natto the other day and found it a little bland; I think it was because it hadn't come to room temperature, as others have also noted. It was nutty and a little pungent and very crunchy and the neba-neba (the strings that connect the crunchy soy beans once they've been stirred) was sticky and coated the rice nicely. Mmnn. Towards the end I added more rice and an umeboshi for some saltiness. It worked.

Natto was originally the byproduct of fermenting soybeans in hay, which contains Bacillus subtilis, or Bacillus natto. The stuff ferments and makes this sticky mess. They so sell B. suntilis, if I ever had the ambition to make my own...