Ainu cuisine used all the same ingredients, instead utilizing what was most available. In addition to salt, the fats ("sum") from cod, sardines, herring, shark, seal, whale ("humpesum)," sika deer ("yuksum"), and bear ("pasum") are used to flavor dishes. Miso and soy sauce have also been used in modern times. Soup stocks may be made using kelp ("kombu"), animal bone, and dried fish. Seasoning and spices include "pukusa" ("allium ochotense"), berries from the Amur corktree ("phellodendron amurense"), and wavy bittercress ("cardamine flexuosa"). The most predominate game animal was the sika deer. Deer were hunted using poisoned arrows as well by herding them
Formosan sika deer the 17th century immigration from the Chinese mainland increased dramatically in response to political instability in China and economic opportunities on Taiwan, which from 1624 until 1662 was controlled by the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The VOC, operating from the port of Taoyuan (modern-day Anping, Tainan) in southwestern Taiwan, established a trading post whose main business was the export of sika skins to Europe. During the six decades of Dutch activity two to four million sika skins were exported to Europe. Exporting was reduced when the Dutch were forced out of Taiwan in 1662, but continued throughout the Qing