The Taste of Sunlight

The flavor of dried food
is the taste of sunlight.
Take shiitake mushrooms, for example—
when dried in the sun,
they contain up to ten times more vitamin D
than when fresh.
Dried radish strips are packed
with vitamin B1, B2, and iron.
Their concentrated umami
can create a rich broth all on their own.
Just adding dried ingredients to a stew
can deepen the flavor dramatically.
That’s the magic of sun-drying.
There are two main ways to preserve food:
freezing and drying.
Freezing locks it in place.
Drying, on the other hand,
invites sunlight to transform it.
Through that process,
new nutrients and flavors emerge.
The food becomes something new—
and the taste becomes deeper.