Uncle's Happy Diner Episode 39: A Soup Festival, a Microcosm of Life, and the Chosen One's Pork Miso Soup

This story is a way of giving shape to my gratitude toward the woman who continues to light a beacon of hope on the dining table of a middle-aged man living alone.

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It's sudden, but today's care package is "tonjiru" (pork miso soup).
Should I call it tonjiru or butajiru? Well, such trivialities don't really matter either way.

The greatest image associated with the dish known as pork miso soup is its overwhelming "warmth."
In the midst of bitter cold or when disaster strikes, pork miso soup served from a large pot is, quite literally, food that "sustains life."

Inside today's Tupperware, pork, plenty of root vegetables, and my favorite, konjac, were all beautifully brought together in a sea of miso, that magnificent fermented seasoning.

I have always wanted to describe this dish, pork miso soup, in a single phrase as a "soup festival."
Pork, daikon radish, lotus root, burdock root, konjac, tofu, green onions. Each of these star-caliber ingredients, all completely different, starts making a lively ruckus in the bowl, shouting "Heave-ho! Heave-ho!" while miso, that broad-minded coordinator, masterfully shapes it all into a single frenzy. That is the image I have.

However, at one point, I heard someone else describe pork miso soup like this.

"A soup of tolerance, where the 'individuality' of the ingredients melts into one through the 'harmony' of miso."

While there is certainly the liveliness of a festival, the root vegetables and pork, each with completely different textures and flavors, are embraced by the broad-minded presence of miso, ultimately coming together into a single, well-rounded flavor. It seems like a "microcosm of life," where disparate individualities gather and transform into a great kindness, they said.

……A microcosm of life.

Profound. It is far deeper than my simple adjective of a "soup festival."
Once again, I have been soundly defeated.

And so, this middle-aged man living alone, behind the title of a respectable facility director, spends his days realizing his own lack of knowledge and poverty of sensibility.

But, still.

No matter how unable I am to express it with clever words, there is one overwhelming fact.
That I am the only one in the whole world, the chosen one, who can have this incredibly warm and delicious "microcosm of life" that she made for me all to myself and tuck it away in my stomach.

Every time I take a sip, the nutrients of the earth and the gentle aroma of miso soak into every corner of my tired body. I may have lost the battle of words, but in terms of happiness, it is undoubtedly my landslide victory.

Today, too, was incredibly happy.
Thank you, pork miso soup. And to her, who made it.

With a warm, festive ruckus packed into the bottom of my belly, I feel like I can do my best on my own battlefield again tomorrow.