Editing Fish sauce (section)

=== Asia ===
Sauces that included fermented fish parts with other ingredients such as meat and soy bean were recorded in [[China]], 2300 years ago.<ref name="history">{{Cite web |last=Butler |first=Stephanie |date=2012-07-20 |title=Ketchup: A Saucy History |url=http://www.history.com/news/hungry-history/ketchup-a-saucy-history |access-date=2017-04-04 |website=History}}</ref> During the [[Zhou dynasty]] of ancient China, fish fermented with soybeans and salt was used as a condiment.<ref name="web1">{{Cite web |title=调料文化：酱油的由来 |url=http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/www.godpp.gov.cn/wmzh/2007-10/11/content_11376810.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120130171757/http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/www.godpp.gov.cn/wmzh/2007-10/11/content_11376810.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=30 January 2012 |access-date=2018-06-21 |publisher=Big5.xinhuanet.com}}</ref><ref>[[:zh:酱]]</ref> By the time of the [[Han dynasty]], soy beans were fermented without the fish into [[soy paste]] and its by-product [[soy sauce]],<ref name="needham2000">{{Cite book |last=Hsing-Tsung |first=Huang |title=Joseph Needham: Science and Civilisation in China, Vol.6, Part 5 |date=2000 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0521652707}}</ref>{{RP|346, 358-359}} with fermented fish-based sauces developing separately into fish sauce.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kurlansky |first=Mark |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kK7ec92n5x8C |title=Salt: A World History |publisher=Walker and Co. |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-8027-1373-5 |location=New York |page=20}}</ref> A fish sauce, called ''kôechiap'' in [[Hokkien]] Chinese, might be the precursor of [[ketchup]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Gandhi |first=Lakshmi |date=2013-12-03 |title=Ketchup: The All-American Condiment That Comes From Asia |work=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/02/248195661/ketchup-the-all-american-condiment-that-comes-from-asia |access-date=2017-04-04}}</ref><ref name="McGee" />{{RP|233}}

By 50-100 BC, demand for fish sauces and [[fish paste]]s in China had fallen drastically, with fermented bean products becoming a major trade commodity. Fish sauce, however, developed massive popularity in Southeast Asia. Food scholars traditionally divide East Asia into two distinct condiment regions, separated by a bean-fish divide: Southeast Asia, mainly using fermented fish (Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia), and Northeast Asia, using mainly fermented beans (China, Korea, Japan). Fish sauce re-entered China in the 17th and 18th centuries, brought from Vietnam and Cambodia by Chinese traders up the coast of the southern provinces Guangdong and Fujian.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Lim |first=Lisa |date=2017-07-21 |title=When China invented ketchup in 300BC, and how it morphed from a preserved fish sauce to sweet tomato gloop |work=South China Morning Post |url=http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/2103418/when-china-invented-ketchup-300bc-and-how-it-morphed |access-date=2018-11-25}}</ref>