aem > wrote:

>Kimlan is a very large Taiwanese food products company, claiming the
>biggest soy sauce sales among Taiwan brands. Pearl River Bridge is a
>very large company in Guangdong, which may be the biggest soy sauce
>seller from China. Kikkoman has the equivalent position in Japan.
>They all make "genuine" stuff, naturally fermented, as few additives
>as possible, and they all taste good to a lot of people. You can find
>all three in both the asian markets and the supermarkets here in
>SoCal. Which you like best is up to your taste. Kikkoman has a lower-
>sodium soy sauce that tastes, as far as I can tell, just like the
>regular product. I don't know whether the others offer a lower sodium
>version. I've been stuck on Pearl River Bridge for quite a while now
>but I've used both the others in the past and may again in the
>future. -aem

Does anybody here brew their own soy sauce, or ferment their
own black bean sauce, or concoct their own oyster sauce from
oysters?

Just curious. It seems to me it's relatively difficult
to avoid bottled ingredients in Chinese food preparation,
relative to many other types of cuisines.

Steve