Yesterday it was like 7:00 p.m. and I’d cleaned up the whole kitchen and then eaten dessert (twice) and then cleaned that up, and I was restless. I didn’t have it in me to sit on the couch anymore, even though Vito and Bruno Kirby had just rolled up the rug and taken it back to Vito’s wife and they put little baby Sonny on it and he cried and fell over. I couldn’t take it anymore with the sitting and the watching, I had to do something else, so I went into the office and started rummaging around in the books. The New Yorker Book of Eight Billion Cartoons wasn’t doing it for me so I moved on until I found the most deeply artisanal, holy-shit-you-have-way-too-much-time-on-your-hands-you-know-Vons-is-still-open-right? recipe I’ve ever come up against. (Because of course after you’ve stuffed yourself silly you want to read about food you’d never want to make.)
Soy SauceThe following is taken from a traditional Chinese recipe. Boil 2.5 kg (5 1/2 lb. 13 cups) soya beans in water until they are reduced to a puree. Add 1 kg (2 1/4 lb. 9 cups) plain (all-purpose) flour and knead well to produce a thick dough. Leave in a cool dark place for 2 days, then hang the container in a draught for a week. When a yellow mould appears on the dough, place a jar containing 5 litres (8 1/2 pints, 5 1/2 quarts) water and 1.5 kg (3 1/4 lb. 5 2/3 cups) salt in a sunny place. When the water is warm to the touch, put the dough into the jar. Leave this uncovered for a month, pounding the mixture vigorously every day with a stick. The mixture will turn black as it ages.
Leave for 4-5 months without stirring or covering the jar, unless the weather is bad, in which case the jar should be covered. Decant and store the sauce in hermetically sealed bottles.
Who the hell thought this up, is what I want to know. Who thought, Hmm, I need some salty black delicious liquid to dip my dumplings in, maybe I’ll just punch some dough with a stick and then leave it out back until spring? Well, whoever it was, whether individual or collective, I do thank you. Because we’re having sushi tonight.
Thank you so much for posting this. And thank you, long-ago Asian person who invented this magical elixir. And thank you, Kikkoman, and EdenSoy (EDENsoy!) for making it for us. Although I usually use reduced-sodium shoyu instead.
The trial and error that must have gone into getting this JUST RIGHT is staggering.
If you ever come to London, Ian will gladly show you his Victorian leather-bound ‘Household Remedies for Man and Beast’, which has a remedy for sweaty canaries.
I’ll admit that wins, but you should see the ‘pork pie’ recipe in my National Trust book of English recipes. Anything that starts with rendering down pig’s trotters deserves an honorable mention.
My friend Jennifer has a crazy old (60′s, I think) British cookery book for those frugal brits who want to make wine from celery. Seriously.
sweaty canaries!
Have a read of “Salt” by Mark Kurlansky – a history of the world based around Salt. It’s seriously good reading and goes one better than soy sauce – Icelandic fermented fish that gets buried in the ground and dug up after like a year. Shudder.
ew.
Whoa! I’m at work right now (library) and just finished helping a kid with his homework – a research project on the sandwich (rock on, kid). One of the three books I grabbed for him, not 10 minutes ago: Larousse Gastronomique! I mean, of all the books in the library! And then, of all the sites on the internet!
This is blowing me away way more than it probably should.
Wow … I might actually consider making this! I mean, just to, you know, *see.*