History of Soy

On The Domestication of the Soybean

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The Florentine, Francesco Carletti who visited Nagasaki, Japan in 1597 wrote in his memoirs (18): "They prepare various sorts of dishes from fish, which they flavor with a certain sauce of their's which they call misol. It is made of a sort of bean that abounds in various localities, and which—cooked and mashed and mixed with a little of that rice from which they make the wine already mentioned, and then left to stand as packed into a tub—turns sour and all but decays, taking on a very sharp, piquant flavor. Using this a little at a time, they give flavor to their foods, and they call shiro what we would call a potage or gravy." Several years later Captain John Saris wrote in his log about the food habits of the Japanese, "Of cheese they have plenty. Butter they make none, neither will they eat any milk ..." (95). Satow points out, "This must be a mistake of Captain Saris. Perhaps he mistook bean—curd (tofu) for cheese, which is not known to have at any time formed part of the diet of the Japanese." It wasn't until 1712, when Engelbert Kaempfer, who lived in Japan during 1691 and 1692, published his book Amoenitatum Exoticum ... that the western world fully understood the soybean and its utilization as a food plant (5). Yule and Burnell (130) cite several references on the soybean in English literature which pre-date Kaempfer. This would appear to suggest that in the seventeenth century, the soybean was known in Europe as an exotic food plant from the Orient. However, it was not until Kaempfer's book that the soybean emerged as a potential food plant for the western world.

Attempts to popularize the excellent nutritional qualities of the soybean for home consumption in North America and in Europe have met with limited success (1, 23, 47, 58, 102, 116, 117). This is mainly due to competition from milk products. Also, soybean meal is considered to have a nutty and bitter taste (90). In the U.S. the two primary products of soybeans are oil and meal. Varieties currently grown in the U.S. contain oil contents from 20 to 23 percent and protein contents from 39 to 45 percent (125). The refined fraction of crude soybean oil is converted to margarine, shortening, mayonnaise, salad oils, salad dressings, mellorine and sandwich spreads (7). The lecithin fraction of crude soybean oil is used as an emulsifying, surface active, anti-spattering, and stabilizing agent. A small percentage of the soybean oil is used in industrial products such as paint, ink, varnish, soap, lineoleum, rubber fabrics, and cosmetics (9). Most of the soybean meal is used as a source of high protein in animal feeds for the production of milk, butter, eggs, poultry, beef, pork, and lamb (39). Industrial soybean protein is used in adhesives, wallboard, and paper coatings (16). Recent developments in the utilization of soybean protein in the form of concentrates, isolates, and textured protein for human consumption offers a partial solution to man's protein needs in a world with a rapidly growing population (2, 3, 74, 79, 110). On a protein cost per kilogram basis, the soybean is today the cheapest source of protein (48).

The taxonomic history of the species within the genus Glycine has been a confused issue in the past and is still bewildering to the non-taxonomist (61, 82, 87, 92, 101). The arguments for and counter charges against nomenclatural shifts have been presented lucidly in a monograph by Hermann (40). Hermann reduced the number of Glycine species, subspecies and varieties from 323 to 187, published a list of species excluded from Glycine, divided Gycine into three subgenera, and created two new genera Paraglycine and Pseudoglycine. The labors of Hermann clearly offer the challenge to plant breeders and geneticists to apply classical taxonomy to the improvement of soybean yields. In addition, the monograph serves as the cornerstone in this investigation on the domestication of the soybean.

In preparing a revised treatment of the genus Glycine for the Flora of Tropical East Africa, Verdcourt (121) examined the type of G. javanica.To his dismay, he found that the type specimen, which was the type for the entire genus Glycine, was not even a Glycine but a Pueraria (kudzu). This discovery precipitated another revision in the genus Glycine: (1) G. clandestina was selected as the type specimen for the genus; (2) G. petitiana: and G. javanica were combined to form one species G. wightii; (3) subgenera Leptocyamus and Glycine were changed to Glycine and Bracteata, respectively. The present taxonomic picture of the genus Glycine is shown in Table I.

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