Edamame with Hawaiian Sea Salt

Don't overcook the edamame - they should be tender but still have some bite. The Hawaiian black salt is dramatic but regular sea salt works fine. Serve in a bowl for easy snacking with an empty bowl for pods.

Edamame's story begins in China, where soybeans were first cultivated approximately 7,000 years ago. The earliest documented reference to edamame as a food in Japan comes from a letter written on July 16, 1275, by the Buddhist monk Nichiren, who thanked one of his temple's parishioners for the gift of edamame he had left at the temple — making it the first known written use of the word anywhere in the world, confirmed by the SoyInfo Center's historical database. Soybeans had reached Japan from China around the 6th century CE, most likely via the Korean peninsula, and over the following centuries the practice of harvesting them young — before the pods dried — developed into a distinct culinary tradition. By the Edo period (1603–1868), Wikipedia records that edamame had become a popular street food in Japan, and appearances in haikai poetry as early as 1638 confirm its everyday presence. During the Edo period it transitioned from an elite dish to a common snack sold by vendors alongside beer and sake — a role it still occupies in izakayas today. Edamame reached the United States in 1855, and the first large-seeded vegetable variety specifically named "Edamamé" was imported from Japan in 1890 by agricultural explorer Charles C. Georgeson. It arrived in Hawaii embedded in the food traditions of the Japanese immigrant community, whose first large organised waves arrived in 1885 to work the sugar plantations. The Hawaiian black lava sea salt finishing this dish connects the Japanese tradition to its island setting: salt harvested from Pacific waters and finished with activated charcoal, giving it the dramatic colour and mineral depth associated with Hawaiian artisan salts.