Taiwan Today

The art of making traditional condiments is alive and prospering in central Taiwan.

Perched on a hillside overlooking Dongshi District of Taichung City in central Taiwan, Fu Hung-yen’s (傅宏彥‬) house resembles any other neighborhood home at first glance. A closer look reveals a storage room with row upon row of shelves, an outdoor space chock full of dark brown jars and tall stacks of firewood occupying a corner of the front yard. The logs are collected from the Fu family lychee farm located nearby. While the fruit provides a source of income, the trees are grown primarily for the purpose of producing an essential element of the country’s culinary scene: soy sauce.

Fu is the third-generation operator of May-dong Traditional Handmade Sauces, which was founded in 1928 during Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945). Prior to settling in Taiwan, Fu’s grandfather studied soy sauce manufacturing in Japan, putting his knowledge to good use upon arriving in Taichung and establishing the company. Nearly a century later, May-dong continues to utilize its original techniques, bucking the modern trend of mechanized mass production. Fu took up the family mantle after retiring from military police service 10 years ago and has since become a leading member of Dongshi farmers’ association, which gives him a platform for avidly promoting traditional manufacturing methods of local agricultural products.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in such products as people pay greater attention to food safety. May-dong’s soy sauce is made from a handful of natural ingredients without any chemical additives, enhancing its appeal for the increasing number of customers turning away from larger commercial manufacturers. A look at the nutrition label reveals a simple composition of soybeans, salt, sugar and water. “We take care to stick to the basics and avoid any chemicals that are harmful to human health,” Fu said. “The resulting condiment tastes superior to those sold by major labels.”

Waste Not

Tracing its origins to classical China more than 2,000 years ago, soy sauce has become a staple in diets throughout East and Southeast Asia. At Mei-dong, making the commodity by hand takes at least one year, the process beginning by boiling beans in oak barrels over a heated brick stove for around seven hours. Fuel sourced from the family’s lychee farm adds a unique flavor to the final product. “It’s the ideal firewood because it imparts pleasant smoky notes,” Fu said.

After the beans cool, they are mixed with mold cultures and stored indoors for approximately a week. Then the lightly fermented beans are washed, dried, salted and placed into covered ceramic jars with water to brew for up to three years. “Time is a decisive factor,” Fu said. “While it takes longer for the beans to properly age here than in hotter areas of the country, our product’s quality is on par with or better than others.” In the final stage, raw sauce from the jars is boiled with sugar and water again in oak barrels and then filtered through cotton cloth to remove bean fibers before it is ready for packaging.

Fu still uses glass bottles instead of the more common plastic ones. Many of the containers are washed and reused, as May-dong continues its long-established door-to-door delivery service for local customers in addition to its more recently developed online sales channels. “The cost of hiring a person to wash bottles is about the same as buying plastic ones,” Fu said. “So naturally we chose the more environmentally friendly option.” As for disposal of leftover materials, the ash and bean fibers are converted into fertilizer or animal feed. “Decades of such practices place my family at the forefront of the circular agriculture movement,” Fu said. “Though we didn’t initially do it out of environmental concerns, we’re happy to keep making full use of available resources.”

Operations Imperiled

May-dong came under threat in 1999 when a massive earthquake registering 7.3 on the Richter scale struck central Taiwan. The resulting devastation included over 2,000 casualties and tens of thousands of destroyed buildings. Among the damaged property were the family’s stove and many of the ceramic jars. “Our first thought was that perhaps it was time to close the business,” Fu said. “Or if it continued, mechanization was probably the way to go.”

After much reflection the Fus decided to remain steadfast and continue upholding the family practice, setting reconstruction work in motion. The most demanding part turned out to be restoring the broken stove. Fortunately, Fu managed to locate a craftsman who had studied traditional methods of laying brick stoves. With the purchase of new jars from local kilns, the production line was back in order by the mid-2000s.

According to Fu, post-earthquake restoration turned out to have a surprising silver lining because it fostered much closer cooperation within the local agricultural community. A contract with a farm in Houlong Township of Miaoli County in northern Taiwan now provides May-dong with organic black-hull soybeans meeting about 70 percent of the company’s need. The rest currently comes from imports of the yellow-hull variety from Canada. Fu plans to further expand his use of locally grown beans in the future on the back of government policies encouraging domestic soybean production as a way of bolstering the country’s food self-sufficiency. He also intends to replace some of his imported salt and sugar supply with local yields. Relevant partnership proposals are pending after discussions with farmers in the southern Taiwan cities of Chiayi and Tainan.

Cultural Preservation

These collaborations match Fu’s vision of bolstering sustainable development in the country’s agricultural sector while fostering awareness of the unique flavor palate of local soy sauces. He heads a traditional brewing culture association comprising several senior sauce makers to promote production of black soybean sauce, which Fu considers emblematic of Taiwan. “In the past, there were few exchanges between individual makers,” Fu said. “Now we’ve got a growing consensus on the need to jointly preserve this significant part of our culinary tradition.”

Among other efforts, the group has sought assistance from food scientists at National Chung Hsing University in Taichung to enhance final products by taking environmental factors like temperature and humidity into account. “Each sauce has its own distinct flavor based on the brewing conditions in different locations, and we want to bring that out as much as possible,” Fu said.

Intent on ensuring the soy sauce trade is passed down to the next generation, Fu has incorporated an educational component into his family business as well, inviting students from nearby elementary schools to witness the production process firsthand. “Students receive their finished sauce as a special gift upon graduation, making for a truly memorable experience,” Fu said. He has also been invited to lecture on topics like food culture and community regeneration at tertiary institutions such as National Taichung University of Science and Technology.

Plans to establish a museum devoted to soy sauce production are also in the works. Preparatory efforts have already begun with joint exhibitions held by May-dong and like-minded producers in Taichung. Similar events are scheduled later this year at Taipei City’s Huashan 1914 Creative Park. For members of Fu’s association, the museum is a critical step in cultural preservation, but to Fu the endeavor has even greater significance: it is the highest tribute he could pay to his family legacy. 

Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw