Task 3

Product and Consumption 

Soy Sauce

Soy sauce is the best known and most widely used traditional soy food worldwide. It was also the first soy food to become widely known and used in the West. It is the defining flavor for many of the cuisines of East and Southeast Asia. This all-purpose liquid seasoning with its deep brown color, pleasant aromatic aroma, and richly satisfying flavor is increasingly used in place of salt to add flavor to favorite foods and, through its wealth of natural glutamic acid, to enhance and evoke the complex of delicate indwelling flavors in these foods.

History of Soy Sauce

In ancient China, preserved foods and their seasonings were known as jiang. Different types of jiang (a soft paste) were produced from meat, seafood, vegetables and grain. Of these ingredients, grain was the most easily available and manageable, and so the jiang made from soybeans and wheat developed more quickly.

K.C. Chang (1977)’s book Food in Chinese Culture states that in all likelihood soy sauce as known toward the end of the Chou period (1100 BC-221 BC), based on evidence from the Shi chi (written ca. 85 BC). And the idea of removing a liquid from jiang existed by the Han dynasty (about the beginning of the Christian era). The first mention of a liquid soy sauce appeared in Korea in AD 683 and in Japan in AD 775. It seems highly likely that these were derived from a similar Chinese ancestor.

The Dissemination of Soy Sauce from China to the World

Korean documents first mentioned soybean paste and soybean sauce ( jang and kanjang ) in AD 683 (Wang and Lee 1978). The earliest mention of soy sauce in Japan dates from AD 775. These products probably traveled east from China with the spread of Buddhism. No dates have yet been found concerning the spread of soy sauce southward, where it was probably taken by traders or Chinese settlers; in most areas it retained its basically Chinese identity, although in many southern countries, it evolved into a thicker product sweetened with molasses. In the Philippines it became toyo ; in Indonesia and Malaysia, kecap or kechap (formerly spelled ketjap , a word that originated in Hokkien??), in Thailand see-iew , and in Vietnam tuong , the most unique of the southern soy sauces.

In 1600 England founded the East India Company (VOC) and in 1601 launched the first ships to trade with East Asia. Holland started its own East India Company in 1602. Dutch ships arrived in Hirado and began trade with Japan in 1609. The English traded at Japanese ports from 1613 to 1623. Then in 1635 Japan closed its doors to most trade with the West. The well-behaved Dutch, however, were an exception and by 1641, when their trading station was moved from Hirado to Deshima, near Nagasaki, they were the only European nation allowed to trade with isolationist Tokugawa Japan.

The men in Dutch trading posts throught Asia soon learned about Japanese shoyu and miso, and began to order it from their trading post at Deshima. The earliest know export of shoyu from Japan was from the Dutch trading post in Deshima to other Dutch trading posts in Asia.

Tamura and Hirano (1971) reported, without citation, that during the reign of Louis XIV of France (1643-1715), the Dutch exported shoyu from Japan to the French court, where this expensive seasoning was served and prized as a great delicacy at the King's sumptuous palace banquets.

The English also took an early interest in shoyu and, in fact, the earliest reference to soy sauce by a European in the West comes from John Locke in England in 1679, probably by the East India Trading Co. It is important to note that shoyu came to Europe before soybeans, the latter having arrived by about 1739.

Shoyu must have been fairly popular in England by the mid-1700s. The well-known British author Elizabeth David (personal communication) remembers seeing a silver "Soy" label, for hanging around a bottle, dating from about 1740, in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The first reference to soy sauce in America appeared in 1804 in The Domestic Encyclopedia , by Mease.

History of soy foods in Australia

In 1804 “Fine India Soy”(sauce) was sold in Sydney, the first soy product sold in Australia. The gold rush, which began in 1851 in NSW, had by 1855 attracted an estimated 17,000 Chinese to the goldfields. They almost certainly brought soybeans with them for food, and perhaps for cultivation. Soybeans including black soybeans first arrived in Australia as a gift from the Minister of the Interior Department of Japan. By 19 May 1879, they were available for distribution to farmers. The soybean was first clearly cultivated in Australia in 1891. In 1936 the first commercial soyfood product was manufactured by soy pioneer F.G. Roberts.

Production and Consumption of Soy Sauce in the Australia

Soy sauce is an important condiment in our daily life. But the majority of the soy sauces currently sold in the supermarkets or Asian grocery shops are imported from Asian countries.

Australia is the only country in Oceania that has ever produced significant amounts of soybeans. Yet we are a small producer, ranking about 30^th worldwide in total annual production. In the year 2000 we produced about 175,000 metric tonnes, yet by 2002 our production had fallen dramatically to 55,000 tonnes, dropping to 45,000 in 2004 and 2006 probably because of severe drought since 2003, then rising to about 70,000 by 2008.

There is no data found showing the consumption amount of soy sauce in Australia. Here I would use America as an example, consumption of soy sauce in USA increased very rapidly between 1950 and 1981, with total consumption in 1981 reaching an estimated 43,350 kl or 11,452,000 gallons (Fukushima 1981). US per capita consumption of soy sauce was about 188 ml (6.36 ounces) per year; this is less than 2% of the 10,000 ml consumed per capita each year in Japan. Of the soy sauce consumed in the US, an estimated 92% was made domestically and 8% was imported. 

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