Soy sauce is used with rice, when stir frying, as part of a main dish, or as an ingredient in dipping sauce. Most people are not aware of the differences between light and dark soy sauces, or differences between brands of one type or another, be they slowly aged or artificially prepared.

Soy sauce and other foods, made from soybeans are items the Chinese have been relying on for at least 5,000 years. The soybean plant was first known as ta teou which means big bean. It was revered as one of the five sacred grains, along with rice, wheat, barley, and millet.

From early history, soybeans have been providing the Chinese people with a meat alternative that is highly nutritious, healthy and inexpensive. In addition, soy is known for its ability to replenish crops because of its high nitrogen content, also the bean itself fixes nitrogen in the soil. When was first brought to the United States, these beans were referred to as “Green Manure.” They were also used as feed to sustain the animals for farming and agriculture.

Soy sauce, as a by product of soybeans, was developed about 2,000 years ago. Historically, it was the cooked and mashed beans that were fermented for 30 days with salt and water yielding a dark brown liquid and a mash. When the aging process was completed, the mixture was strained and jarred. Today, many variations of soy sauce are made from soybeans. They are mixed with grains, usually wheat, also with yeast. The best soy sauces are made slowly, fermented for several months.

There are two basic types of soy sauce used in Chinese cooking, light and dark. Dark soy is aged much longer than light, giving it a brownish black color and much thicker texture. As its name suggests, light soy has a lighter color, plus a saltier flavor. It is used more in cooking, where the dark soy sauce is used more as a condiment. When stocking the pantry, you should always keep both on hand. Today, there are also mushroom, fish, and may other soy sauces, each with a different flavor. Non brewed soy sauces are chemically produced by hydrolyzing plant protein then adding colorings, salt water, caramel, and corn syrup. Semi brewed soy sauces are also produced, but by combining the two methods just described. When chemically produced, the proteins in the soybeans are decomposed by high heat and the addition of hydrochloric acid, then neutralized by bicarbonate, and finally they have sugar, salt, and caramel added. This method also results in a product lacking in flavor and aroma compared to brewed versions.

Make sure you buy the right product, the brewed kind. I personally use Tamari, the Japanese version as it is wheat free.

I smell a rat! Some financial entities (read speculators), like the oil producers, are making a killing. Somewhere.Some weeks ago I wrote a piece on how traders are playing some kind of  “casino capitalism” by speculative buying that is helping to drive food prices higher. I’m convinced that soaring wheat prices are driven partially by greed, but can’t prove it. Yet.

The FAO reports that favorable weather conditions and a greater confidence in more plentiful supplies in the new season have driven prices down sharply in recent weeks. Have you bought a loaf of bread today that was cheaper than say, a few weeks ago? Nope.

By mid-May, international wheat prices stood about 50 per cent below their peaks in late February, although it is important to note that by April, the price of United States wheat was still 80 per cent above the same period last year, according to the FAO.

Decline in wheat futures! No kidding? How will that be passed to us? Don’t hold your breath as Food Outlook confirms that recent declines in the US wheat futures have been “pronounced” driven by firmer prospects for a “significant increase” in this years American output as well as at the world level. US winter wheat is forecast up 17 per cent and the world level up 8.7 per cent.

“In May most US wheat futures fell to a five-month low in light of prospects for a record wheat crop this year”, said the report.

In the northern hemisphere bigger harvests are expected in all regions with the exception of Asia, where output is expected to remain close to last years levels (though I’m still waiting for China’s wheat crop production to be announced.)

Reports from Europe tell us that better weather conditions than last year have particularly favored production in countries situated in the eastern Black Sea zone such as Bulgaria and Ukraine. If normal growing conditions continue for the remainder of the season production in the EU-27 is forecast to reach about 138 million tonnes, up nearly 15 per cent on 2007′s low output.

More good news: with regard to wheat imports into the EU it is anticipated that there will be a “sharp decline” as a result of the expected recovery in output, I read in EuroNews. When shall we expect a reduction in price, I wonder? Again, don’t hold your breath. Traders are saying that stocks must be replenished first.

After falling to nearly a 30 year low, world wheat stocks by the close of the 2009 crop season are forecast to rise to 168 million tonnes, up 16 per cent. At current forecasts the world wheat stocks-to-use ratio for the new season is forecast at 26.4 per cent, nearly a 5 per cent increase from the 2007/08 low but below the 30 per cent at the start of the decade.

Sadly, the strong demand for wheat, particularly for animal feed, will prevent wheat stocks and the stocks-to-use ration from any significant improvement. In other words, flour prices will remain high as wheat inventories in major exporting countries are expected to rise, with expansion in the EU up 5.5 million tonnes. As Shakespeare would say, “Something’s rotten in the State of Denmark”!

Next month (June 3 to 5) there will be a high-level conference on world food security and the challenges of climate change and bio-energy. It’s going to be in Rome, at the FAO headquarters. I’m not sure the enormity of how to feed the hungry 900 millions in developing countries can be solved in two days of talk, color me skeptic.

The overall purpose of the conference is to address food security and poverty reduction in the face of climate change and energy security. More specifically, the objective is to assess the challenges faced by the food and agriculture sectors from climate change and bio-energy in order to identify the steps required to safeguard food security within the broader context of action being recommended to address climate change and bio-energy at the global, regional and national levels. It should thus contribute to the UN system efforts in the field of climate change.

I am compiling a photo diary on the amount of food and its cost consumed by families from all over the globe in one week. Make sure you see it, it will be posted tomorrow at 5.30 EDT. It will astonish you how little some families can survive on.

Perhaps no herb known to the Eastern or Western world is shrouded in as much mystery and promise as ginseng. The herb exists throughout both China and North America in two major species. The Asian form, Panax ginseng, has been harvested for medicinal use for over 7,000 years in China, and wars were waged in China over control of the forests where it flourished.

American ginseng, Panax quinquefolium, has enjoyed a relatively short popularity of only 300 years. American ginseng began to be harvested in the wild in the 1700’s by Jesuit priests in Canada for export to China (btw, they almost cornered the world market!), who was suffering from ginseng shortages due to over harvesting. Settlers often described that Native American villages were found empty as the entire population was out collecting ginseng! Daniel Boone was said to have traded ginseng.

Both the Asian and American forms of ginseng are highly revered by traditional healers throughout the world. The word ginseng is said to mean “the wonder of the world”. Due to the fact that the harvested roots often take a surprisingly human form, complete with offshoots that resemble arms and legs, it has also been named “the man root”, and is considered to be the “king of herbs” (a little known fact is that C.A. Meyer, a Russian botanist, named it panax ginseng in 1843, panax meaning cure all in Greek pan does all, Axos medicine)

According to the old medicine men there are some alternative ways to use ginseng: you can compress the juice from the berries into your eyes and see better for 3 hours. You can use the root and leaves for tea. It gives you energy. It makes you a little bit stronger. makes you feel better. It keeps you from getting sick. It helps sore throats. It aids fever. Some people use ginseng for gum. They chew the root. Whatever medicine you use, when you add ginseng to it, the medicine is stronger.

The old adage that women should not take ginseng is mostly untrue. However it not recommended throughout pregnancies.

Any list of the classical fruits of China should begin with the peach. Native to China, particularly to northern and western areas, peaches, peach wood, and peach flowers have been venerated in China for thousands of years. They were mentioned in the Chinese literature of the sixth century B.C.E.. Pits and other archeological remains found and dated circa 5,000 B.C.E.., confirm origins in the north and western regions of China and Tibet.

Varieties newer than BC, such as the peaches of Samarkand, the size of large goose eggs, were successfully transplanted in Imperial orchards in the city of Xian in Tang Dynasty times (907 to 907 C.E.). During the Sung Dynasty (960 to 1279 C.E.), both white and yellow peaches were popular and they and all fruits were much more common elements of the diet than they are today, particularly among the wealthy. Its English name derives from the Latin plural of persicum malum, meaning Persian apple. In Middle English, it melded into peche, (from the French, which means, annoyingly, fishing!) much closer to what we call it today.

The Persians brought the peach from China and passed it on to the Romans. The peach was brought to America by Spanish explorers in the sixteenth century and eventually made it to England and France in the seventeenth century, where it was a popular albeit rare treat. The rest is history! I wouldn’t be surprised if the recipe today featured peaches….and raspberries!

But the discovery of a pot of thin yellow noodles preserved for 4000 years in Yellow River silt may have tipped the bowl in China’s favor. It suggests that people were eating noodles at least 1000 years earlier than previously thought, and many centuries before such dishes were documented in Europe. This is the earliest empirical evidence of noodles ever found.

Other theories suggest noodles were first made in the Middle East and introduced to Italy by the Arabs. Italians are widely credited for popularizing the food in Europe and spreading it around the world.

Here is a time-line that I think is more or less accurate (depending on your search engine, no less!)

Scientists determined the noodles found in the Yellow River were made from two kinds of millet, a grain indigenous to China and widely cultivated there 7,000 years ago. Modern North American and European noodles are usually made with wheat which was cultivated around 5,000 years ago.

500-600
Amidst numerous cultural exchanges, China shares Buddhism and the art of noodle-making with Japan. Buckwheat noodles become a staple of the Japanese tea ceremony.

1138
Arab geographer, Idrisi, travels to Sicily and writes about “triyah,” a food resembling threads and produced in large quantities.
1700
The very first spaghetti is produced in Napoli, Italy.

1800
Japanese specialty shops create noodles, similar to those eaten today, but requiring considerable preparation time and effort.

The relationship between noodles and pasta also goes back more than 700 years. It is believed that in the late 13th century, Marco Polo traveled to China and brought noodles back to Italy to add to his country’s repertoire of pasta, and that, my friends, is also debatable. What do you think?