Redeeming the Bean: CAAMFest Hosts ‘A Soy Story’

Nichi Bei News

June 8, 2023

Much maligned and misunderstood, the soybean has fallen into disrepute as the poster child for all that is wrong with corporate agriculture. Tangled up in legal disputes and bioengineering controversies while blamed for monopolizing land at the expense of crop diversity, the East Asian legume has drawn the ire of countless critics. Some people don’t even like its taste.

In an effort to defend this besieged bean, a group of advocates gathered in San Francisco for “A Soy Story,” celebrating the underappreciated significance and deep character of this complex heritage food. Presented as part of this year’s CAAMFest, the May 18 event welcomed some 200 attendees into an auditorium at KQED Headquarters for the opportunity to hear from eco-educator Aileen Suzara, farmer Kristyn Leach, and chef Steve Joo.

Following an opening drum performance by Dohee Lee and JaeEun Jun, the headliners took the stage to converse with interviewer Cecilia Lei, host and producer of the local podcast “Fifth & Mission”.

Suzara, who launched the culinary project Sariwa in tribute to her Filipino roots, cautioned against “a reductive Western way of looking at foods.” A past winner of UC Berkeley’s Yamashita Prize for her public health work with Filipino youth, she declared that “we often might hear some framing in white wellness spaces in the U.S. about these foods as ‘new’, and it’s so important to really recognize that soy and other crops have centuries or thousands of years of history behind them.”

Leach pointed out how this lengthy history has spurred a co-evolution between humans and plants, a dynamic that inspires her with awe. “So much of the beauty of these relationships is in that dance back and forth of how we left an imprint that’s really discernable in each other’s makeup,” she marveled. As a specialist in growing heirloom crops from Korea, she emphasized how soybeans have influenced life on that peninsula, noting, “When I think of something that comprises the core of a place and a people, in terms of shaping culture along with biodiversity, I think soy is such a good mascot for that.”

She explained how that richness became muted after the U.S. government imported the bean in the 1930s. “The USDA spent a considerable amount of money in its early days bringing soy from East Asia,” she recounted, adding that the agency funneled thousands of soybean varieties into breeding programs that “essentially took away over three quarters of the unique genetic traits.”

In 2014, Leach herself imported several soybean varieties from Korea, and has been striving to preserve their distinctive cultural identity while adapting them to the environmental conditions of Northern California. In maintaining this delicate balance, she has taken pains to stay attuned to the priorities of the Korean diaspora. If a bean “stops being legible to the community,” she said, “then I would have done a great disservice accidentally.”

She has kept herself accountable in part by founding Second Generation Seeds, an organization that relies on a network of growers and community members to steward the lineages of her imported soybeans and other select Asian crops. The organization sells the seeds of those lineages, all part of a larger goal to commit “an act of restoration,” according to Leach.

Similarly, Joo acknowledged that his culinary ventures have been guided by “a certain origin spirit that I’m always trying to chase,” embodied primarily by Korean elders. He described the fare at his Oakland restaurant Joodooboo as channeling “what a Korean grandma would do if they were transplanted to California and given a set of Californian ingredients.”

Some of his most gratifying moments as a chef have come when patrons said “something tastes or feels very familiar” about a menu item “that doesn’t look like anything familiar.” His desire to evoke a sneaky nostalgia with his dooboo (tofu) and banchan (side dishes) aligns with the hope Leach has for her seeds — to keep them rooted in tradition while allowing for flexibility and growth.

The fruits — or rather, beans — of their mutual labor grabbed the event spotlight after the interview segment, as Joo gave a quick cooking demonstration for a dish “officially called ‘Dooboo with Stuff’.” He adorned a block of fresh dooboo with brown chestnut soybeans, sugar snap peas, and grilled favas, adding extra flavor with soy sauce, Meyer lemon juice, scallions, garlic, ginger, chili vinegar, olive oil, and other seasonings. A brave audience member came on stage for a taste test while samples were distributed to attendees in their seats. All accounts seemed to indicate rousing enthusiasm for the dish.

The event concluded with a quick visit from QTViệt Cafe Collective’s Hải Võ, who talked about the Vietnamese queer and trans group before touting its contribution to the evening, a dessert made with tofu and ginger syrup. Attendees had the chance to grab a serving upon exiting the auditorium.

An excited buzz filled the space where people enjoyed their desserts and each other’s company. In all likelihood, everyone there had arrived with pre-existing appreciation of tofu, shoyu, and related products — the program didn’t need to convert anyone from soy cynic into bean believer. But the energy transmitted by the speakers and through the food certainly added some welcome uplift to the ongoing story of soy.