Spanish 'between' French & Italian? Sorry, that doesn't work at all (for a start, there's Spain's Muslim culinary heritage, but I could go on. And on, and on).

As far as I understood, the origins of dashi are humble, merely dried bonito shavings steeped in water. The addition of kombu, and, one presumes, miso came later.

I certainly don't belittle the enormous influence China has had on the foods of the countries that surround it (Italy certainly owes a string of debts to this great nation) but when it comes to dashi and miso soups you might as well say:

"Bah, something got lost on the way from India via China and, perhaps, Korea."

The popularity of grain and bean misos in Japan being more of a lifestyle decision based on the popularity/influential power of Buddhism than a preference for the actual food.

My own analogy would be different - it's like you've compared breakfasts, miso soup being this (developed to suit diets of abstinence), the Chinese soups you're comparing dashi based broths to being this.


Dashi reminds me of a Zen stone garden. The genius of this broth isn't what's in it, it's what isn't.