or god forbid that swill they call la choy

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...

Pearl River Bridge has a seasoned soy sauce that's been my constant for over a decade.

Which prepared foods show off the qualities of the soy sauce best?

I feel like in most of my cooking the soy sauce is overpowered.

Once you step outside the usual suspects like Kikkoman, there's a whole world of nuance out there.

Will vouch for Kimlan, my late mother's favorite!

La choy is to soy sauce what Maruchen is to real ramen or Kraft to French cheese. Try San J, available in most 'health' grocers, eg Food Hole, Sprouts, etc. it's not fine, but it's good.

I got into making hot sauces recently. I didn't really care for any of the results until I started fermenting them. Chop up ingredients, add brine, put everything in a jar with a fermentation lid that allows gas to escape. Then let it sit on the counter for a week or two. blend and maybe add a bit of vinegar. That's the basic process, and in my humble opinion, it's the absolute best way to make hot sauce

(YMMV, do your own research, there are obviously risks to letting food sit out at room temperature for two weeks)

It's kinda wild how fermentation does both - keeps food from going bad and somehow makes it taste better. Like, who figured that out and thought, "Yeah, let’s just let this sit and see what happens"?

So much of human society relies on the byproducts of other organisms. Pickles, bread, antibiotics.

It also makes things rotten. The difference between spoilage and fermentation/aging is whether humans like the result at the end.

> Most of the soy sauce you encounter in the US has wheat, while in Japan (and seemingly South Korea) there's no wheat added.

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.

I was under the impression that traditional Japanese soy sauce (shoyu, not tamari) also contains wheat (close to 50/50 ratio) - it's used to help start the fermentation.

> Most of the soy sauce you encounter in the US has wheat, while in Japan (and seemingly South Korea) there's no wheat added.

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.

Once I had to switch to tamari due to a celiac diagnosis, I found it was one of the few things that actually tastes better without gluten. I think most of the world would enjoy soy sauce made without wheat more if they tried it.

Also, most soy sauce in Japan absolutely has wheat unfortunately.

Good question... I think they're pretty different in taste and how they're made (which is why they taste so different)

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.

Same. Tamari seems to have a much richer flavor than soy sauce. I would recommend others try it a replacement.

I believe (more likely, chatgpt believes) this plant is Warabi. I didn't know it was processed with charcoal purification!

The process sounds similar to how I use something acidic to process the toxins from Taro leaves before eating them.

Kikkoman USA has been brewing a lighter soy sauce in Wisconsin for the U.S. market for a few decades while now. It’s what most people in the U.S. think of when they hear “Kikkoman”.

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.

There's no one "traditional" soy sauce. It's kind of like wine. If you live your life only drinking sweet port wines straight from the bottle, you'll think a dry white wine is gross if you use it the same way. But if you're making a cream pasta or some sort of fish, you'll quickly realize white wine--and every wine--has its place.

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.

I grew up on kikkoman, view it as the soy sauce equivalent of Heinz ketchup or Best Foods/Hellmans mayonnaise and still cook with it all the time. But after tasting a wide variety of soy sauce I would describe kikkoman's profile as salty, metallic and stout-beer like. The fancier soy sauces seem less salty (despite similar amounts of sodium) and can have varying notes of oyster sauce, seafood, sweetness, coffee, molasses and MSG.

Kikkoman has a double-fermented soy sauce in their product line, brewing starts with their regular soy sauce instead of salt water. The flavor is much deeper and more complex, it's actually less salty than regular soy sauce.

Another commentor suggests this is more like tamari than soy sauce. If it is, expect a similar but more intense flavor and an especially long after taste. It's hard to describe the more intense flavor. It's like if you only taste soy sauce with the center of your tongue, you taste tamari with the tip, center and sides.

Probably like tasting a whole different thing. Traditional soy sauce hits way differently, it’s not just salty, it’s got layers

Try Pearl River Bridge Light soy sauce. Is the default recommended light soy sauce for a lot of asian cooking, and easy to find.

You'll like it better than the harsh flavor of Kikkoman

Salty

"typically white" - the artists and gay men living in the area 60-30 years ago were "typically white" too. Same with the wealthy middle aged people who moved in 30 years ago and are being replaced with this new, young, temporary crowd.

> 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.

I'm a huge proponent of "good enough" in all aspects of my life so I fully agree. A two-year old used flagship phone is good enough. A cheap Thinkpad is good enough. Most clothes actually actually last a long time, even the cheap ones.

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.

I can't speak to this particular NYC subculture, but it is definitely the case that all round the world long lines form around "the best" version of a thing even when it is literally the same thing you can get at a half dozen vendors on the same block. Some of the people in line may be tourists, but there are also plenty of local people who just enjoy the hustle and bustle. There are people who really do find pleasure in being part of something popular, doesn't even matter the intrinsic quality, what matters is the hype. If they chase that experience, who cares? It doesn't affect your life. Even if they overrun your daily haunt, just go to the next one down the street, since it didn't matter anyway. It seems to me there are much worse things to worry about than people who get a thrill out of waiting in line.

> 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".

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.

Yes, I'm at the point in my life where for 99% of food.. waiting 1 hour in a line completely ruins any potential "best-ness" of said food item.

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.

Many take pleasure in excellence, in whatever form. "The best" is in reality pretty ambiguous and subject to short term trends that will get you long lines and that trend chasing can be hollow, but I'm sorry I really strongly disagree about the difference between "good" and "excellent" in many things I've found.

I will never understand how people have the guts to racially profile white people and at the same time call someone a racist for doing that with non white people. its just intellectually dishonest…but maybe I am not american..

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

Honestly the difference between best and good is purely subjective and mostly a function of hype. With a lot of things best and good can’t be told apart in a blind taste test.

ChatGPT, is that you?