Consider this – many of the most mundane things we eat today, only came about by complete accident. Bread, as a most humble example, was flat for thousands of years until the accidental discovery that you could leave dough in the sun and it would expand. Cornflakes, Worcestershire sauce, even beer – all things that we just happened upon without a clue of how unremarkable they would become in our daily lives.
Oyster sauce is another such accident – one that has had a profound effect on Chinese cuisine. It's common to think that oyster sauce has a history that matches soy sauce, such is its important to Chinese cooking, but whilst the origins of soy sauce go way back to China's Western Han dynasty over 2,000 years ago, oyster sauce is a relatively recent invention.
In 1888, Lee Kum Sheung was busy running his food stall in Nanshui – a neighbourhood to the south of Zhuhai in modern day Guangdong province. As usual, he set a big pot of oyster soup on the stovetop and left it simmering gently, ready to feed his lunchtime customers. What it was that distracted him from his stove we will never know, but he promptly forgot about his oysters. When he discovered them many hours later, still simmering away on the hob, they had reduced to a thick brown paste – certainly not the clear soup that his customers were expecting.