A dried yellow soyabean is hardly promising. Filled with defensive chemicals that make it largely indigestible, it has to be boiled for hours before it is remotely palatable.
The Chinese, who probably domesticated the bean around 1000BC, originally considered it a grain-food that could only be eaten in the form of gruel.
Yet this unappealing bean turned out to be no less miraculous than those that were cast into the ground by Jack of Beanstalk fame: a casket of wonders that could be unlocked to release the richest source of plant protein on the planet, not to mention a cornucopia of exciting tastes and textures.
For the Chinese, it would end up being not just grain but protein, vegetable, relish, seasoning, even pudding. Soy provided the same sort of nutrition as dairy products, but more economically.
It helped shape a farming system that, before the advent of chemical fertilisers, supported more people per unit of arable land than any other. And, for a world faced with the upheavals of climate change, it may be one of the keys to our survival.
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