Abstract

When soy sauce is mentioned, the Taiwanese tend to think of black soy bean soy sauce as a unique representation of Taiwan. However, Taiwan’s daily use and sales of regular soy sauce tell a different story: black bean soy sauce is much less popular in today’s Taiwan than regular soy sauce, which occupies almost 80 percent of the market share. One may ask, what made for the seeming absence of regular soy sauce in popular writing and promotions for Taiwan’s foodways? As a symbol of the local brew, with traditional flavor and hand-made in workshops, black bean soy sauce has been re-created recently, in stark contrast with regular soy sauce, which is portrayed as a product of mass production and a food factory product, lacking in flavor, with the product made through a “chemical” procedure. This paper explores how these binaries were being created and in which contexts the comparisons were being conducted. Also, inspired by the concept of “embodiment” that focuses on human perceptions shaped by culture, the author argues that tourism factories of black bean soy sauce have simulated the techniques used by craftsmen to design a step-by-step demonstration to help visitors experience traditional soy sauce brewing. The design of do-it-yourself brewing goes even further, relating each step in the process to a comprehensive understanding of traditional soy sauce brewing, in which the roles of timing, the local environment, and skilled human labor have all been emphasized.