Soy Sauce

#### Soybean. Although the flavor known as **Soy**** ****Sauce**** **is only a minor derivative of the soybean, it should be mentioned briefly at this point in view of the tremendous importance of the soybean for the world nutrition problem. Soybeans are the seeds from the pods of **Glycine Soja**, a Far Eastern plant, now cultivated all over the world in tropical, semitropical and temperate zones. The milky emulsion that is formed when soybeans are ground with water can be fermented by means of a fungus, **Aspergillus**** ****Oryzae**, which the Japanese and Chinese people keep on hand in their households, cultivated on a riceball. Due to this fermentation, certain flavor materials are formed; among them is one of the most powerful and pungent flavor chemicals known: gamma-**Methyl**** ****Mercapto Propionaldehyde**, commercially known as **Methional**. It is one of main flavor principles in the well known Chinese or Japanese **Soy Sauce**. In this sauce is also present the corresponding alcohol, gamma- methyl mercapto propanol and the related delta- methyl mercapto butanol and the well known Maltol (also known under the brand name of "palatone"). Similar materials have been isolated in an "essential oil" steam distilled from the press cake of the soybean, a very common cattle feed and by-product from the soybean oil factories (vegetable, fixed, edible oil). The very comprehensive studies of soy sauce have contributed significantly to the advance of modern food flavoring. One of the largest selling "spices" (truly a seasoning or food-additive, the so-called "third spice", following salt and pepper) is MSG, *monosodium glutamate,* consumed today in tens of thousands of tons all over the world as a flavor improver, salt synergist, chicken or meat flavor, etc. The annual consumption in the U.S.A. is estimated at a figure between 10,000 and 15,000 metric tons. MSG is actually present in soy sauce. This sauce is, incidentally, the main source of salt (sodium chloride) for the people of the Eastern countries. **Soy Sauce **is a very dark brown liquid of a sweet, meat-extract-like odor and extreme pungency, but also salt-sweet and spicy taste. At proper dilution, it enhances the flavor of many kinds of food, e.g. meats, soups, vegetables, fish, rice dishes, etc. The sauce is sold as such, but smaller amounts are also used in the spice industry for combination sauces, seasonings, etc.