Ban soybean sauce

"Leaving one feels nostalgic for the home place.

For the water morning-glory soup, for the soya sauce pickled egg-plants".

This folk song creates for people the reminiscence of the country and rice fields. In the past, people were familiar with the phrase: “The soya sauce pickled egg-plants is the basic of a family”, which means when people have a pond of water morning-glory, a jar of soya sauce and a jar of pickled egg-plants, they should feel secure about food throughout the year.

The most delicious kinds of soya sauce are Ban soya sauce and Pho Hien soya sauce. The sauce is yellow brown and sweet-smelling. The soybeans are ground into tiny grains and the color of the sauce is the same as that of cockroaches. It is made from a type of fragrant glutinous rice and Vietnamese soya beans. Small beans should be chosen as they contain much protein. Roasting beans is a cooking art. Soya beans must be roasted with sand – a traditional method to ensure all roasted beans to be equilaterally brown. In order to cause fermentation, people use taro leaves or lotus leaves to cover the roasted beans until the fermentation is soft and spongy.

When the fermentation is good enough, the next step is warming soya-beans with water in a jar and this is an important step. The jar should be cleaned for several times. The water for soya-bean soaking should be taken from a soil or a stone well and should not be tap-water. After the soya-beans are soaked in water for a while, the scum should be removed. In a cool morning, the beans should be warmed from early morning until noon when it becomes hot. After that, the soya sauce in the jar should be stirred every morning and covered with a glazed terra-cotta basin to protect it from direct sunlight, not the warmth of the sun. The longer the soybean sauce is warmed under the sun, the more delicious it is. People often divide the soya sauce into small bottles for gradual use.

People say that soya sauce is sweet; however, its sweetness is due to the richness in protein, not the one of sugar. Moreover, it is purely processed, made by selective ingredients and can be kept for a long time. When people see a bowl of soya sauce with ginger, they want to eat it with boiled pork meat or underdone beef and Truong Xa wine. The fatness of the meat, the sweetness of the soya sauce, and the aroma and pungency of ginger together with some kinds of vegetables supplement one another to make an unforgettable meal.

Soya sauce has the meaning of community. During a meal, all kinds of food are dipped into it to make a good taste. It is delicious and not as strong as the sauce made from sea fish. That’s the reason why it is loved by Hung Yen people and considered as the basic food in family.