Miso is a traditional Japanese seasoning that we cannot live without. It is said to have been derived from the ancient Chinese paste, hishio. Hishio is made by mixing ground meat and fish with salt and alcohol and marinating it in a container for at least 100 days to age. It is believed that, in the 1^st century B.C., a paste called shi, which was created from fermenting soybeans and millet, had made its way from China and the Korean peninsula to Japan. Japan might have used this paste as a prototype to evolve its own paste; this is the miso we know today.