Mariko Grady

Aedan Fermented Foods

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Appears in
We Are La Cocina
We Are La Cocina

By Leticia Landa and Caleb Zigas

Published 2019

  • About
Joined La Cocina: April 2012

When her four-year-old daughter Yukina and infant son Aedan were both finally asleep, Mariko Grady’s body ached. Her day should have been ending, but instead she carefully pulled the pressure cooker from the cabinet, lifted a pot of soaking soybeans to the kitchen sink, and started making miso.

As she drained the soybeans and found the koji that she’d brought to San Francisco from her last visit to Tokyo, she smiled to herself. Even though she was exhausted, she knew that the miso she’d make that night would provide daily sustenance for her as well as ensure that her American-born kids got all the benefits of fermented foods that she had taken for granted in Japan.