If you're looking for "I Spys," dating or LTRs, this is your scene.
View ProfilesPublished April 11, 2023 at 2:17 p.m. | Updated April 12, 2023 at 10:10 a.m.
In 2018, Elysha and Sjon Welters received an unusual message from a staffer at TV Tokyo, the network that brought us "Pokémon." It invited the Cabot couple on an all-expenses-paid trip to Japan to share their knowledge of traditional Japanese foods for the cameras.
Originally from the Netherlands, the Welterses founded Rhapsody Natural Foods in 2002. The business is run by the nonprofit Center for Natural Living, which includes Sjon, Elysha and their children.
On their property in Cabot, the Welters family and a crew of seven employees produce an array of Japanese ingredients, most of them fermented — plus tempeh, a steamed and fermented soy product that originated in Indonesia. They make miso; a cultured rice milk called amazake; natto, or fermented whole soybeans with a slippery, stringy texture; and mochi, a molded rice paste that can be used in sweet or savory foods. Rhapsody also sells koji, or rice inoculated with Aspergillus oryzae, which customers can use to make their own miso or sake.
The pandemic saw an increase in Americans' willingness to try fermented foods, which scientific research has linked tentatively to better COVID-19 outcomes. Filtering into mainstream news, these findings boosted interest in products such as natto, which had heretofore been a tough sell in the U.S. due to its lubricious texture and an aroma often likened to that of a particularly aromatic cheese. The New York Times headlined a 2020 story "Eat Natto, Live Longer?," and the #nattochallenge hashtag has more than 6 million views on TikTok.
All this interest is a boon to Rhapsody, which supplies many Vermont co-ops and smaller local stores and ships its products to consumers as far away as Alaska and Hawaii. Natto sales have increased by about 50 percent since the start of the pandemic, Elysha said, with Vermont and online sales especially strong. The company has wholesale distribution through Associated Buyers and Black River Produce and works with a few shops in New England and California, despite the rising cost of shipping.
Montpelier's Hunger Mountain Co-op has been Rhapsody's biggest account since the beginning. General manager Kari Bradley called the biz "one of the co-op's foundational producer partners" and noted that co-op members have been big fans of Rhapsody products for more than two decades.
Benjamin Ragland, perishables buyer at the City Market, Onion River Co-op in Burlington's South End, is "quite fond" of the Rhapsody miso, which he likes to use as a base for ramen or simply eat by the spoonful "for the probiotics." The plain organic tempeh is a runaway bestseller, he said.
Living in the Netherlands in their twenties, both of the Welterses worked for a company that imported miso, and they loved to visit Japanese restaurants. "In general, they have a much healthier lifestyle [in Japan] than Western people here, and they have a lot of traditional foods that we have forgotten," Elysha said. "We found out that ... we could learn their cooking methods and their lifestyle."
The couple were drawn to the macrobiotic diet, which is based on Zen Buddhist principles and promotes local, seasonal eating that eschews most animal products with the exception of seafood. "Macrobiotic means 'big life,'" Elysha said. "It means you have a balanced lifestyle." Nowadays, she finds the rules against meat, sugar and dairy "a little rigid," she said, but, she added, "It's a cleansing diet. It helps get rid of a lot of ballast, a lot of excess."
Commerce rules were strict in the couple's home country, Elysha said, so their dream of a home-based business and entrepreneurship drew them to the United States. They emigrated in 1983 and made their way to Cabot 14 years later, after stops in Arkansas and Massachusetts.
That year they began selling prepared foods in the back of State Street Market in Montpelier, and in 2002 they moved their operation to a highly visible spot on Main Street, next to the Savoy Theater.
At Rhapsody Café, the couple offered a vegan buffet that included sushi, their famous egg rolls and a salad bar. At the time, they cooked with tempeh from a local company. When that business stopped producing it, they sampled a few other brands.
"We ordered different tempehs that we didn't like, and then we said, 'I guess we have to make it now,'" Elysha recalled. "We made it first for ourselves, and then we made more to sell to local stores, and it grew."
Meanwhile, more cafés and restaurants were opening in Montpelier, and the Welterses saw their market share slipping. "We never really were restaurant people," Elysha admitted.
As they built up their home operation, the couple began adding new products to the mix — first amazake, then miso. Since both of those products require koji as an ingredient, they sold that, too. Although mochi isn't fermented, Sjon loves eating it, so they bought the equipment to manufacture their own. They currently use organic Lundberg Family Farms rice from California and soybeans from Canada, though they did experiment with growing their own rice for seven years.
Elysha was particularly excited to talk about natto, which she eats every morning as part of her breakfast. She described it as an excellent source of nutrients that are hard to come by in the diet, such as vitamin K2 — "people are really looking for that nowadays," she said. "Natto is called a superfood. They say it helps bring calcium out of the blood and into the bones and helps prevent clotting."
As for miso, its probiotics make it great for digestion, Elysha said. Her children and grandchildren, who are less strict about their diets than Elysha and Sjon, always down bowls of miso soup when they return home from traveling. "It makes you balanced, like you're home. It regulates everything," she said.
Tempeh has a high level of phytoestrogens, and Elysha, 67, said she can attest that it's great for regulating women's hormones. "Because I love tempeh, it's not hard for me to eat a lot of it," she said, "and I had no side effects of menopause."
Although the couple have been producing traditional Asian foods for decades, they were still surprised by the invitation to appear on an hourlong TV Tokyo special. Before they hopped on a plane, they hosted an entire Japanese TV crew in Cabot.
"They filmed us here, the whole family," Elysha recalled. The Japanese-language video clip shows giggling American children eating natto and one accidentally dumping the slippery soybeans on her clothes.
In April 2018, Elysha and Sjon headed to Japan, where they accompanied the film crew and a translator on visits to producers of traditional foods, with a focus on fermented soybeans.
"We went in a van from one place to another, and we visited three places," Elysha said. "It was a really great experience."
During an additional two-week stay in Japan, the Welterses visited a miso maker in Kyoto and the Kikkoman Soy Sauce Museum in Noda, where they got to see the huge wooden drums traditionally used for aging the salty sauce. They marveled at the quality of the food they found at gas station stores and casual eateries. "Even the 7-Eleven stores sell soba noodles and rice balls with umeboshi," Elysha said.
Back in the United States, the couple have no current plans to expand Rhapsody Natural Foods. They're happy with their company's steady growth and the increasing interest they see in some of their less familiar items, particularly the natto.
On Amazon, Rhapsody's two-pound block of tempeh has 43 ratings, while its small-bean natto has 282. One such review reads, "This is amazing. I've never been able to stomach natto ... I can't believe I'm looking forward to eating this more." Another says, "I've been eating natto since I was a toddler in Japan and this is ... the best tasting I've ever had."
The Welterses heard something similar during their time with TV Tokyo. When the makers they visited tasted Rhapsody's natto, Elysha recalled, they "thought it was fantastic and that it could have been made in Japan."
The original print version of this article was headlined "Fermenting Revolution | Cabot's Rhapsody Natural Foods rides a wave of increasing appetite for fermented staples"
Tags: Food + Drink Features, Cabot, Rhapsody Natural Foods, Japan, Japanese ingredients, Natto, tempeh, fermentation
Comments are closed.
From 2014-2020, Seven Days allowed readers to comment on all stories posted on our website. While we've appreciated the suggestions and insights, right now Seven Days is prioritizing our core mission — producing high-quality, responsible local journalism — over moderating online debates between readers.
To criticize, correct or praise our reporting, please send us a letter to the editor or send us a tip. We’ll check it out and report the results.
Online comments may return when we have better tech tools for managing them. Thanks for reading.