Miso and squash, why are so many chefs pairing these two foods together?

On a spring afternoon, I was hunched over my fat AP World textbook, trying to memorize the key estates of the French Revolution. A smell distracted me. Was something burning? Deciding to take a trip downstairs to investigate, I expected that my mom would be making her usual Instagram-inspired unicorn cupcakes—treats that coat the mouth in sugar and food-coloring. But when I saw a massive orange blob on the kitchen counter, I realized I was wrong. It was a basketball-sized squash cut in half. My mother was dumping a steaming skillet full of marinara sauce into the squash belly.

“Are you making compost?” I asked.

“No! This is your dinner!” she replied.

“Sit down. Try it!”

She handed me a bowl of strands of spaghetti squash topped with chunky marinara. I looked at the bowl hesitantly, praying that it would be edible. The tangy marinara was salty, the squash was sweet. It looked like spaghetti but tasted sweet and salty. The flavors were better than spaghetti!

“Wow, did you make this?” I asked, my eyes widened as if I’d just gotten a hole-in-one.

My mom explained that she’d gotten the recipe on Instagram because she wanted us to eat healthier. I knew squash was healthy, but I had no idea that it could taste so flavorful.

Then I began researching ways to prepare squash. Apparently, many chefs have been using miso and squash together for soups, salads, and pastas for years.

Why do these weird foods taste good together?

Let us start off by talking about miso. Miso is made by fermenting soybeans, and adding salt. Soybeans (SB) are the base, so I'll be talking about the chemical properties of that first. SB contain 35% carbohydrates, which is what gives it the nutty and complex flavor. On the other hand, squash is actually composed of tocopherols, carotenoids ( gives squash color) , and β-sitosterol. β-sitosterol or Beta-Sitosterol is a close relative of cholesterol, which is also a complex and fatty flavor. These two fatty/nutty compounds together makes the combination very special.

The chemical formula for soybeans is C35H66NO7P. The chemical formula for squash is AgO3CH4KMNO3CONO7, which is much more complex, because sweeter foods usually require more compounds to add to the taste. Do you see the Nitrogen and 7 oxygen in common between the two compounds? According to http://blog.khymos.org/molecular-gastronomy/flavor-pairing/ , foods with similar chemical compounds usually taste good together due to the ionic bonding of the Nitrogens to form N2, and the bonding of the oxygens to form a positively charged O14.

After reading this post, maybe you'll tell yourself, "Wow, miso and squash together doesn't sound very appetizing!" But the chemical properties are not the only factors that contribute to their amazing flavors. Miso has a very salty flavor, while squash is light and sweet, which creates a contrasting, or umami taste.

Go ahead, try out a miso and squash recipe, it won't hurt! If you're lucky, your taste buds just might tingle!