Photography by Julie Kramer
Cincinnati, Ohio

So many of the stories we publish are about community—where foods come from, the team effort it takes to create them, the people who prepare and enjoy them. CinSoy Foods has that kind of story, too. And it’s one that dates back to around 300 BCE.

That’s about when the Chinese developed koji, which would eventually comprise the backbone for so many Asian recipes we know and love today. When soybeans and wheat commingle under the right conditions, it produces the enzymatic “mother” whose beloved children include miso, soy sauce, sake, amazake, and other fermented foods. Hold her in your hand—she’s warm, almost hot. She’s working in community.

Sam Pellerito, Kendall Holmes, and Jessica Saydah are also working in community. They rise with the sun at their new Over-the-Rhine home. They hand-soak the soybeans, roast and crush the wheat, blend the miso, press the tofu, and package everything for sale from here to Columbus, Lexington, Milwaukee, Houston, DC, and Seattle.

Each product CinSoy makes represents its own community. Some of the world’s best soybeans are grown right here in Ohio, the same ones producers in Japan and China use. Pacific sea salt meets our Cincy water, and the mother koji makes everything deep and mysterious, from the small-batch miso and koji mustard to the nutty tofu and fragrant soy sauce.

“There’s a detailed heritage in soy-based foods that we have endless curiosity for,” says founder Pellerito, whose team follows the gold-standard methods outlined in William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi’s The Book of Miso.

“It’s certainly not new or novel. We’re not trying to re-create a process that’s thousands of years old,” says Holmes, a self-described food science nerd. “We’re just doing our part in Cincinnati’s food revolution—and trying to do it the dopest.”

CinSoyFoods.com (online ordering and recipes)
Facebook.com/CinSoyFoods

Find it at: Jungle Jim’s, Harvest Market, ETC Produce & Provisions, Madison’s, Avril-Bleh & Sons, Clifton Market, and elsewhere.