I have a very special online English teacher. She is from Serbia, but surprisingly she really knows well about Japanese culture! I enjoy talking with her every day.
Today I was very happy because she told me that she had tried to make "karaage".
Karaage(唐揚げ) is Japanese version of fried chicken, pronounced kah-rah-ah-geh. It is first marinated in ginger, garlic and soy sauce, then coated in potato starch and fried until golden brown and crisp.
She showed me a picture of karaage which she had cooked. It looked delicious, and same as which we usually make in Japan. But she said "It was too sweet for me because of the sweetness of the soy sauce."
I was very surprised because soy sauce is salty for us. As soon as the English lesson finished, I took the soy sauce bottle out of the fridge and checked the ingredients.
Ingredients: water, soybeans, wheat, salt
That's all. It can't be sweet.
I referred to the internet for "soy sauce" sold in other countries. I found some comments from Japanese people living in Europe. They say that it's hard to get real Japanese soy sauce. Instead of that, other kinds of soy sauces are sold as "soy sauce" there. They are sweet and contain artificial flavors, completely different from Japanese one. It can't be called "soy sauce" for Japanese!
My English teacher used this HEINZ soy sauce for karaage. I could't find the English list of the ingredients on the internet. This is translated from Spanish...
Ingredients: water, glucose-syrup, sugar, soy sauce(water, soybeans, wheat, salt), molasses, salt yeast extract, coloring(caramel), herbs and spice extracts, acid(lactic acid), contains soy protein , soy milk, and gluten
Yes, completely different! One of Japanese living in Hungary says that he is very sad because many foreign people misunderstand what is "soy sauce" and don't know its real taste. Even if real Japanese soy sauces are sold there, they are really expensive, so people get cheaper fake one.
I really understand what he says because I live in Singapore. Japanese food is now really popular here. But some of them which are made by local companies don't have real Japanese taste. Sometimes I feel disappointed... But foods have to meet their local tastes.
Going back to "soy sauce", I can find many kinds of soy sauces here and most of them are originated in China. They are a bit different from Japanese one, some of them are sweet. But they also have their own long history.
But "sweet soy sauce" doesn't go well sushi especially! Some Japanese restaurants which are managed by local companies use sweet one for sushi... It is unacceptable.
I want to try real tastes all over the world even if I like them or not. Luckily, there are various kinds of restaurants in Singapore and most of them have some chefs from the native countries. So they serve their country's real cuisines. I 'm definitely going to take advantage of this!
