There is a soy sauce museum in Noda City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, the Kikkoman Soy Sauce Museum. Kameko is a long-established soy sauce company in Japan. In the mid-17th century, Lao Zu was the first to industrialize soy sauce production in the middle of the 17th century, and merged to form Noda Soy Sauce Co., Ltd., the predecessor of Kamekoma Soy Sauce. To this day, Kamekoma soy sauce is still one of the world's top soy sauce brands. In 1991, the long-established company opened a museum for a tour of factory facilities and a wide range of presentations on the company's involvement in making soy sauce.
The products of Kamekoma Chinese generally known as "Swastika Soy Sauce" | Winredoaw KOO / Wikimedia Commons
(The author of this article did not collect money for Tortoise Shell Man soy sauce, the above is only the background of the introduction)
Where is the tradition of traditional soy sauce?
Speaking of Japanese soy sauce, it is easy to think of a lot of discussions on the Internet about comparing Chinese soy sauce and Japanese soy sauce. On the other hand, the major soy sauce manufacturers are flaunting themselves to use traditional craftsmanship, as if the two are fundamentally different. Traditional Chinese and Japanese soy sauces are not directly related, but they come from the same source: Chinese sauce was introduced to Japan and became miso, which in turn developed Japanese soy sauce; while Chinese soy sauce was directly derived from Chinese sauce.
Sichuan Luzhou Xianshi Town Sauce Garden | Figureworm creative
However, the production process of the two is actually much the same. The soybeans are steamed, then fermented into qū after wheat flour is added, salt and water are added and fermented again to become soy sauce. The protein in soybeans is broken down into amino acids in this process, and the carbohydrates in wheat are broken down into sugars, resulting in the unique flavor of soy sauce.
What really changed the soy sauce manufacturing process was the industrialization of soy sauce, which began in Japan at the end of the 19th century. At that time, microbiology was born in the West, and the understanding of the fermentation process began. And Japan has caught up with this wave of industrialization.
Aspergillus oryzae used to brew soy sauce | Yulianna.x / Wikimedia Commons
For example, before that, there was no concept of "koji seed" in Japan, and what bacteria were used for fermentation if there were any colonies in the air. After knowing the microorganisms, the concept of "friendly qi" was born, and some of the good ones from the previous batch helped the next batch of fermentation. The finished product is also heated and sterilized to ensure safety. The traditional season of making soy sauce can also be explained in a more scientific way: temperature affects the growth of the species and the reaction speed of the enzyme.
The first step from tradition to modernity
In 1897, the Journal of the Faculty of Agriculture, Tokyo Imperial University published a paper signed Nishimura Y., which vividly showed how scientists used scientific methods to study traditional processes. The fermentation process is described in detail, starting with the raw materials, and the components of the products are measured at each stage. Finally, the authors propose some methods to speed up the fermentation process. Since the fermentation process is the action of certain enzymes, the salt added to inhibit bacteria will inhibit fermentation, and conversely, adding less salt can speed up the fermentation process (but his experiment of adding less salt produced bacteria, which led to the failure of the experiment).
The mechanism for stirring soy sauce | Jiang Xinmei / Research on Taiwan's Soy Sauce Industry during the Japanese Occupation (2008)
He also proposed that what produces the aroma is actually the alcoholic fermentation process, which is not only slow, but also requires a lower temperature. Therefore, sake can be appropriately added to replace the original alcoholic fermentation and increase the temperature to speed up the overall fermentation process. These practices do not seem to be applied to actual production, but it can be seen that there is an attempt to use scientific means to speed up the soy sauce production process.
In addition to chemical and biological developments, mechanization has also greatly improved the soy sauce industry. For example, the process of cooking soybeans at the beginning uses a pressurized steaming tank, which is the predecessor of the pressure cooker; manual stirring with a stick becomes stirring with compressed air; and finally the process of squeezing soy sauce from the fermentation product uses a screw press or hydraulic press. All these industrial improvements led to a significant increase in soy sauce production in Japan.
Soybeans are steamed in pressurized tanks | Jiang Xinmei / Research on Taiwan's Soy Sauce Industry during the Japanese Occupation (2008)
By the 1920s, China was a major exporter of soybeans, while Japan was a major exporter of soy sauce. Even in the Chinese market at that time, Japanese soy sauce was cheaper than local soy sauce.
Not enough brewing, MONOS to make up
The preparation of soy sauce, which is now criticized, was also invented in Japan at that time. In 1908, Japanese chemist Kikusho Ikeda discovered monosodium glutamate (sodium glutamate), which is also the main source of umami in soy sauce. He devised a process of hydrolyzing the proteins in soybeans with hydrochloric acid and purifying the glutamic acid in them, and founded the "Ajinomoto" company to produce monosodium glutamate. The process of making soy sauce (known as "chemical soy sauce") using hydrolyzed protein solutions also came into being. This method avoids prolonged fermentation, so the soy sauce made is relatively inexpensive, but the flavor is not good.
Traditional soy sauce fermentation vats | nubobo / Wikimedia Commons
Hydrolyzed protein soy sauce was widely sold in Japan as a cheap alternative to brewed soy sauce during the period of World War II supplies. Even in the years just after the end of World War II, the traditional soy sauce that took 1 to 3 years to brew was far from saving the fire.
The head of the Soy Sauce Industry sent by the Allies to restore Japan was Miss Blanche Appleton, who knew nothing about the traditional soy sauce preparation method, so she asked the soy sauce factories to still use hydrolyzed soy sauce to make soy sauce, which the Japanese soy sauce manufacturers who pursued taste did not agree. Under pressure, Japan's soy sauce companies have launched a compromise scheme, called semi-chemical soy sauce, which first partially hydrolyzes soybeans, and then adds koji and ferments for 1 to 3 months to make soy sauce, which can ensure a certain yield without excessively detracting the taste of soy sauce. It was not until 1964-1970 that most manufacturers gradually resumed the production of brewed soy sauce.
"Blended soy sauce has no soul!" | Babiesan / Wikimedia Commons
After the 1960s, the soy sauce industry has developed again. The scientists produced more efficient yeast through X-ray-induced mutations and used pure yeast and bacteria to improve the soy sauce production process. The small cylinder has become a large stainless steel cylinder with temperature and humidity control function, fully mechanized agitation. Finer temperature control is also used in the process of making the sauce: after mixing the koji and salt, it is fermented for 15 days below 15 degrees, and then brewed at 30 degrees for another 6 months. Pure mechanization reduced the contamination of bacteria, nitrogen utilization increased from 60% in the 1930s to 90%, and fermentation time was reduced from 1 to 3 years to 4 to 6 months.
Kamekoman Soy Sauce Factory | Suikotei / Wikimedia Commons
After understanding this, let's go back to the so-called traditional craftsmanship. Although the principle of making soy sauce has remained unchanged for more than a thousand years, the equipment has changed, the fermentation time has changed, the method of controlling the temperature has changed, and the genes of the strains have long been different from the original genes. What is important is not to use or even blindly follow traditional processes and technologies, but to use modern scientific methods to understand, study, and improve traditional processes. Only in this way can the traditional craft be sublimated.
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