An interesting note: La Choy is synthetically fermented (whatever what means!) and is usually the only alcohol-free option for those with medical or religious restrictions on the consumption of alcohol. Soy sauce is specifically listed as something recovering alcoholics taking Antabuse should avoid [1], though I've read it only rarely triggers any reaction. But there is a sometimes a reason for La Choy!
[1] https://advantagetherapy.com.au/the-impact-of-antabuse-on-al...
The main verses from the Quran for alcohol intoxicant prohibition come from this verse [1]:
O believers! Intoxicants, gambling, idols, and drawing lots for decisions are all evil of Satan’s handiwork. So shun them so you may be successful.
And another [2]:
They ask you O Prophet about intoxicants and gambling. Say, “There is great evil in both, as well as some benefit for people - but the evil outweighs the benefit. They also ask you O Prophet what they should donate. Say, Whatever you can spare. This is how Allah makes His revelations clear to you believers, so perhaps you may reflect.
Fun facts, Surah Al-Maidah name literal meaning is The Table Spread with Food, in reference to the event of the Jesus apostles were asking for ready foods directly from heavens, from God (not Jesus since Islam consider him as one of the prophets sent by God similar to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Muhammad). This particular event is famously known as The Last Supper [3].
[1] Surah Al-Maidah (The Table Spread with Food), verse 90:
https://quran.com/al-maidah/90
[2] Surah Al-Baqarah (The Cow), verse 219:
https://quran.com/ms/al-baqarah/219
[3] Last Supper (Section: In Islam):
Fun facts, in Semite languages namely Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic (language of Jesus) God is called Allah. This word has no plural meaning, thus God by this very definition is only one.
Funny that you mentioned MSG, personally I can detect certain amount of MSG that went into my consumed food by my nose being itchy and uncomfortable.
MSG however is not intoxicant to the brain like alcohol, marijuana, meth, etc that badly effect the state of mind immediately. The verse clearly mentioned intoxicant and by extension any new substances that make you lose your mind (temporarily or permanent) is not permissible or haram.
This is an excellent video by the health experts if you not yet convinced that any amount of alcohol consumption is bad for human brain and health in general based on published research evidences [1].
[1] Psychiatrist Reveals What Alcohol Actually Does to Your Brain [video]:
Oh come on now, surely Maruchan deserves a bit more credit...at the very least, no one is breaking the bank while desecrating their soul.
In contrast, at my local Walmart, a 15-oz bottle of La Choy is priced +50% higher than its (subjectively superior) Kikkoman alternative of the same size!
Yeah, I'm in genuine agony, probably preparing to puke from all holes, and I'm reading HN... while writhing and moaning.
I guess you could say I'm sick. And so is la choy
I feel like in most of my cooking the soy sauce is overpowered.
For me, nothing beats raw fish (sashimi or sushi) as a taste test for a soy sauce, but I frequently use a mixture with Japanese ponzu... so ignore any expertise that I have on the matter! I am sure that each culinary region in Northeast Asia will have a different answer. You could probably interview 100 chefs from the region and get 25 different answers.
Lastly, there is a third type of soy sauce used in Southeast Asia called sweet soy sauce, or kecap manis in Bahasa Melayu/Indonesia.
The original world from Old Malay for salt is probably "asin", that's now become the word for taste of salt or "masin" meaning salty.
[1] Garum:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garum
[2] The Cham: Descendants of Ancient Rulers of South China Sea Watch Maritime Dispute From Sidelines:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/140616-so...
[3] Did fish sauce in Vietnam come from ancient Rome via the Silk Road? (111 comments):
Way back in the day, when salt was scarce and expensive, the whole point of stuff like fish sauce, miso, soy sauce, etc... was to provide salt but also cut it by adding other ingredients.
Also I just had gyozas with Lee Kum Kee light soy sauce and thought it's a good test for it.
Golden Horde conquered the known world fueled by milk byproducts.
Oceania, Africa, the Americas are not included in that nomenclature usually.
(YMMV, do your own research, there are obviously risks to letting food sit out at room temperature for two weeks)
For example cheese was likely discovered when people tried transporting milk in water carrying bags made from sheep stomachs. While carrying water in them would be fine, putting milk in there for a couple of unrefrigerated days would lead to cheese from the rennet in sheep's stomach that would stay on in the vessel, even after it has been cleaned and even dried.
Same with wine - let's store some fruit juices - it is pretty hard NOT to make wine unless you know about pasteurisation, and even if you do boil it, there are so many natural yeasts just ready to make wine.
Grains that get wet actively want to produce beer :)
Wholemeal flour is chock full of wild yeasts, and wants to become a sourdough starter if you just give it a little water and time.
Is not whether it makes humans unwell quite an important factor..
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dolphins-seem-to-u...
Try wine and grape juice side by side. Baring truly awful wine, the wine will taste better (I suppose you could have awful grape juice too, but, you get the idea).
The unfermented juice of wine grapes has many similarities to the wine it would produce if fermented. "Grape juice" is usually pretty one note, just sweet.
If you want a cold drink that isn't sweet, your choices are pretty much alcohol, alcohol-free alternative, water.
Uh, no.
There's also seltzer, flavored seltzer, flavored water, iced tea, iced coffee, herbal infusions (like hibiscus, rooibos, honeybush, etc), broth, milk and plant based milk alternatives, and fermented drinks like kombucha + kefir. That's just off the top of my head.
Hibiscus even has the benefit of helping regulate blood pressure.
I almost never drink sweet drinks or plain water and rarely drink alcohol. My fluid consumption is almost entirely: hot tea, iced tea, kombucha, and hibiscus infusion. Sometimes seltzer. Sometimes coffee.
I did almost mention jaljeera, but thought that might be a bit niche. It is also often sweetened though. I've never known not-sweet lassi though? Salted lassi is still sweet underneath, like salted caramel, ime. We could count it with the sweet-ish milk drinks, anyway.
Kvaas contain alcohol, doesn’t it?
I think only as much as kombucha, not enough to cause a buzz
I like alcohol too, but not nearly as much as I like beer. Kinda sounds nonsensical, but that’s how I feel!
There is at least some research that says fermented foods have some benefits including reducing inflammation. My personal guess based on subjecting myself to more and more fermenting foods is that much of the obesity and many of the common health issues have to do with not eating enough fermenting foods. Just a guess based on a sample of one.
Black tea is fermented, for example. No need for bacteria.
The term "fermentation" is very often used buy common language to describe both fungic and microbial activity.
Fermentation is the metabolic process by which microorganisms (like bacteria or yeast) convert organic compounds—typically sugars—into other substances such as alcohol, acids, or gases.
Examples:
Yeast turning sugar into alcohol in beer or wine.
Lactic acid bacteria fermenting lactose in yogurt.
2. Enzymatic (Non-Microbial) Fermentation: In certain fields, especially tea processing, cigar aging, or cocoa fermentation, the term fermentation is also used more broadly to describe biochemical changes driven by enzymes—either from the plant itself or from microorganisms.
Examples: Tea (e.g., black tea): The so-called "fermentation" is actually oxidation catalyzed by enzymes in the tea leaves themselves (like polyphenol oxidase), with little to no microbial activity.
Cigars (tobacco leaves): Enzymes within the tobacco leaf, often activated by warmth and moisture, cause internal biochemical transformations (not always microbial).
Cocoa beans: Initially microbial fermentation, but internal enzymes in the bean also break down compounds, affecting flavor.
I’ll be over here enjoying cheese, kimchi, beer, miso, pickles, sauerkraut, etc etc etc
The difference between spoilage and fermentation is whether it’s spoiled.
Most of the soy sauce you encounter in the US has wheat, while in Japan (and seemingly South Korea) there's no wheat added.
Personally once I switched to tamari I never went back to "regular" soy sauce, the flavor is quite a bit richer and more versatile in cooking, in my opinion.
This is incorrect with regards to Japan. Shoyu is made with wheat. Tamari is not. Their production process is different.
Kikkoman is the most popular brand in the West AND in Japan, which is a koikuchi shoyu, which is the "standard" shoyu type in Japan. It is made with wheat.
It’s one of my favorites. I try to find ones without much additives and refrigerate after opening to keep it fresh.
My favourite jang is made from fermented wheat and soy - chunjang. Chunjang is the star ingredient in one of the most delicious noodle dishes ever conceived, Jjajangmyeon.
Also, most soy sauce in Japan absolutely has wheat unfortunately.
My kid with Celiak disease eat "normal" soy sauces and have passed all test so far.
Miso and "dwen jang" taste very different because miso is usually mixed with soybean and rice, whereas dwen jang is all soybean. They are also aged differently. Miso is packed into more air tight container, whereas dwen jang is shaped into a block, hung outside to air dry.
I really need to learn to make 된장찌개 at home. This thread reminded me how tasty it is.
> Western tastes favor intense flavors
Great for dishes where the primary taste is from the soy sauce.
I know there are superior versions, but one should never be sorely disappointed with Yamasa.
In this new economy, I've adjusted my standards so that I still have something to put the soy sauce on, and have been giving Marca Pina (Philippines) a go. Not bad, but contains preservatives.
I've never had true artisan soy sauce and suspect I never will. But used skillfully, amazing work can be done with Yamasa.
Treacherous Joe's, a decade or so ago, had a pure Japanese soy sauce, but at some point cheapened it with vinegar, albeit a negligible amount.
Open to suggestions that don't require being involved in the black budget.
https://www.amazon.com/Gold-Mine-Natural-Food-Co/dp/B0019LA7...
Their mirin is quite good, too.
The process sounds similar to how I use something acidic to process the toxins from Taro leaves before eating them.
Possibly the most depressing thing I've read all week... :sigh:
Honestly, while LLMs hallucinate, they still return more reliable info than using Google and getting the info from an SEO spam blog post that played Chinese whispers with already wrong info from ten other blogs.
The only difference is that using Google is normalized, so you wouldn't have felt the need to announce it.
Of course, unless you personally feel the info is reliable, you probably shouldn't post it no matter where you got it from.
Didn't you just perfectly describe the ChatGPT training set?
Use Lee kum Lee for cooked stuff, Japanese ones for sashimi.
For restaurants they sometimes cook their own soy sauce with different oil and herbs for extra flavour
There are lots of different types of soy sauce catering to different uses.
Specialty markets sell imported Kikkoman products, such as “traditionally brewed” soy sauce which tastes stronger. Note that “stronger” doesn’t mean “better”: Asian consumers are used to using different styles of soy sauce as they see fit. U.S. consumers still largely view soy sauce as a single thing with no variation except maybe “low sodium”. Definitely worth exploring the different varieties.
For example, I find kikkoman to be absolutely awful for fried rice. It has an oddly sharp taste that just doesn't work. Chinese soy sauces don't have that sharpness but have a very wide and smooth savoriness that works well with fried rice. But if you try Chinese soy sauce with sashimi, it tastes flat and very wrong. That sharpness of a Japanese soy sauce works better, and a high quality Japanese soy sauce has a milder sharpness that emphasizes the fish flavors but not so weak that it makes the flavor weird like a Chinese soy sauce would.
Ketchup is like a staple unobjectionable thing to stock in the fridge for kids/guests/comfort. Stocking a weird one kind of defeats the purpose.
I'd rather try various steak / bbq / teriyaki / whatever sauces that set out to be categorically different.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/09/06/the-ketchup-co...
“The thing about Coke and Pepsi is that they are absolutely gorgeous,” Judy Heylmun, a vice-president of Sensory Spectrum, Inc., in Chatham, New Jersey, says. “They have beautiful notes—all flavors are in balance. It’s very hard to do that well. Usually, when you taste a store cola it’s”— and here she made a series of pik! pik! pik! sounds—“all the notes are kind of spiky, and usually the citrus is the first thing to spike out. And then the cinnamon. Citrus and brown spice notes are top notes and very volatile, as opposed to vanilla, which is very dark and deep. A really cheap store brand will have a big, fat cinnamon note sitting on top of everything.”
I'd rather explore entirely other flavors/categories than spend 4x on some fancy knockoff to signal I'm low brow high end. Extremely diminishing returns, and mostly just tastes different.
I don't need a $4 replacement for a Coke or a $5 Mac-n-cheese or a $10 bottle of ketchup.
Honestly we should all be buying less of these processed foods, not going further upmarket with them.
Citi Field used to serve French’s. Which is odd because they were doing Mike’s mustard… money talks I suppose.
My son who was little was like “dad, there’s something wrong with my hot dog.” I tried it, and yes, something was terribly wrong. That stuff tastes like they put tomato flavor in strawberry jam.
https://www.amazon.com/Kikkoman-Maroyaka-Sauce-33-8-Ounce-Pa...
Haven't compared it side-by-side with the normal stuff, but anecdotally it tasted a little more mellow to my palette, and I will probably continue using it moving forward when my 1L bottle runs out.
You'll like it better than the harsh flavor of Kikkoman
Recently New York Magazine came out with an article about so-called "West Village girls" [1]. For anyone unfamiliar, the West Village (and Greenwich Village more broadly) is a part of Manhattan below 14th street that had huge cultural significance int eh 20th century. Many musicians, artists and luminaries lived there for a time. It was the home of the Stonewall riots [2] and is otherwise important to LGTBQ culture.
The West Village girl is pretty much the opposite of all those things. Basic, typically white, posts on IG that "I can't live without my Starbuck's", dresses generically, is chasing her Sex and the City dream, is likely supported by her parents in her 20s after graduating college (if not outright having a trust fund) and probably has hobbies like "travel" and "eating out".
There is a long history of a certain kind of (typically white) people who are devoid of "culture" and move to a place and make it worse by not respecting that culture, like moving above a Mexican restaurant or a bar that's been there for 40 years and geting it shut down for noise. That sort of thing.
This segment is typically obsessed with finding "the best", seeing and being seen at the "best" or just the "hippest" places and so on.
I saw a thing recently about people who travel for an hour plus to find the "best" New York slice. The particular creator explained that these chasers just don't get the point. The point is that you can get good slices pretty much anywhere in NYC. It's ubiquitous. You just don't need to line up for 2 hours at some hole-in-the-wall in Queens or whatever.
And now I'll bring it back to soy sauce.
This seems to fit this obsession of finding or having "the best". For me, the difference between "good" and "the best" for pretty much anything is so marginal that it's never worth paying a huge premium, going terribly out of your way and/or waiting for a long time. That goes for restaurants, food items, wine and pretty much anything.
But every time I see people who obsess over "the best" it always strikes me as so sad, like these chasers just have to have the external validation of being "in the club". I particularly see this with people who are obsessed with Japan, like they look for the absolute best sushi, omikase or whatever but again, I think the point of Japan is you can find good of anything Japanese everywhere, because it's Japan.
I'm happy there are craftsmen who take pride in their craft and their output, be they Japanese teapot makers, calligraphy brush makers or soy sauce producers. And if you get a chance to try such things and appreciate their craft, great. But chasing it always seems so empty.
[1]: https://www.thecut.com/article/nyc-west-village-neighborhood...
> There is a long history of a certain kind of (typically white) people who are devoid of "culture" and move to a place and make it worse by not respecting that culture, like moving above a Mexican restaurant or a bar that's been there for 40 years and geting it shut down for noise. That sort of thing.
That Mexican restaurant you're imagining probably replaced an Italian grocery or a Jewish deli, or something else. The demographics change, and that's how the city works.
The "culture" of the West Village has been wealth and high end retail for 30 years. What happened recently is it got younger, even more homogeneous, and to your point, influencer focused. And I agree that THAT is insidious. Life is not a checklist of the top restaurants and bars, as selected by 23 year old women.
It's all so boring.
Anything above "pretty good at a reasonable price" has diminishing returns, and it attracts many of the people for whom vanity is the main source of enjoyment.
Consider the people who go to Santorini to take the exact same photo, the vanity climbs of Mount Everest or going to some three Michelin star restaurant where your primary concern is posting about it on IG.
It all just seems so... desperate. Like hollow people trying to fill thsemvels with something, anything, so they can feel something and that something is simply the envy of other equally hollow people.
I might even call these "experience vampires". There's a difference between that and appreciation.
Take this soy sauce maker, the people I'm talking about will buy a bottle of soy sauce and then post all about it on social media. Others might talk to the master crafter about their history, how they got started, what they think goes into a good soy sauce, etc. Do you see what I mean?
I'm not normally one for stoicism. I tend to find people who crow about Marcus Aurelius tend to be at the entry for the alt-right pipeline more often than not. But in this case, I seem to find myself siding with the stoics.
Eh, being an "influencer" is kinda dumb, but your estimations of the motivation of people who post a lot on social media might be exaggerated.
The best sushi restaurant in town doesn't have any more or less quality because people make a lot of instagram posts about it.
Annoying people liking a thing doesn't ruin it. Just don't pay attention to them and don't worry about what they're doing.
If you don't like how people are spending their lives give them less head space, don't spend too much time judging them, classifying them, or trying to fix the social ills causing their existence.
you would need to eat soy sauce a lot of times to be able to say when its good vs bad. it has a lot of complexity like wine. and its craft has a lot of similarities too. I highly doubt this woman would rank in the best soysauce of this world. the way she does it seems pretty much like korean homemade from a few decades ago which is amazing still but the craft of soy sauce goes much deeper with lot of wine-like technology too. https://youtu.be/MKbRu3_Ynpk?si=PPRJMohg9AUWnTyv this one would be an accurate depiction of what I mean
Also, I'm completely fine about making certain statements notihng race. For example: the victims of police violence are predominantly, or at least disproportionately, black.
In the case of NYC in general, and the West Village in particular, the long-term residents skew to minorities and those that displace them are typically white, like 23 year olds that somehow afford an $8,000/month WV apartment, which itself is an artifact of generational wealth built on racial discrimination.
In my opinion, I think that looking for "the best" is perfectly fine for things you care about or use frequently.
It's when people try to find "the best" for everything that it becomes unhealthy.
There's so many great examples of so many foods. There is no objective best. Even if there are consensus bests.. it doesn't mean my tastes align with consensus. Consensus is just an average of the crowd. Look at ice cream.. vanilla is generally the top ranked flavor in various lists. Likely it's that most people have a handful of favorite flavors, and vanilla is in everyone's rotation. Not that it is everyones number one.
And again, in a city like NYC where theres dozens of pizza shops on various "top 10" lists, waiting in hours in a line for the latest/greatest fad slice shows a lack of productive hobbies.
I live in walking distance of a variety of shops listed on these lists, but I order from the one that delivers. It's just pizza, it's not worth 2 hours of my life even if it were free, which it is not.
lol, not someone I associate with refined tastes.