Where did the fish sauce phenomenon come from?

What if I told you that, as a well travelled person, you have eaten a lot of fermented fish?

That the fish has usually first been left out in the sun to decompose and the final version (which is served to you) is pure extract of fish.

 

You would look at me in disbelief. Some of you would say things like, “But I don’t even eat fish, especially stinky fish!”

 

   But no, there’s no getting around it. Fermented fish has probably made its way to your gullet at some stage in your life, even if you are a vegetarian.

 

   From the most ancient of times cooks have always realised that fermented fish adds depth and savouriness to food. Long before the birth of Christ a condiment called garum made from fermented fish was a mainstay of Roman kitchens. The Romans didn’t just use it as a kitchen flavouring. They treated it as pagan marmite smearing it on bread and enjoying it for its fermented taste alone.

 

   You are unlikely to have come across garum. But you will almost certainly have met its Asian descendants. The most famous is nam pla, the Thai fish sauce. If you have eaten Thai food in Thailand or anywhere else abroad you have probably enjoyed nam pla. If you have ordered Thai food in India then the chances are that you have eaten it even if your order was entirely vegetarian. Only if you had specifically told your server ‘no fish sauce’ could you be sure (well, kind of sure) that there was no fermented fish in your food.

 

   Most Thai food is characterised by a layer of umami flavour that comes from Nam Pla. We don’t necessarily notice this because we are focusing on the herbs and the chilli. But take away the Nam Pla and you will notice its absence: there will be less depth to the food and it will taste curiously flat.

 

   Because Nam Pla is made by a not very appetising process, you won’t hear too much about its origins. Nam Pla is usually made by fermenting small fish like krill and keeping the liquid produced by this process.

 

   This liquid has a hard to capture-in-words flavour full of umami and saltiness. For Thais it is an integral part of the seasoning process. Nearly every Thai dish (which is not sweet) contains Nam Pla.

 

   Fish sauces are not exclusively Thai. You find them all over the Far East and each version is subtly different. The Vietnamese version is probably more popular than Thai fish sauce in the US for historical reasons. I use both at home. In my experience the Vietnamese sauce is a little sweeter (it’s made mainly from anchovies not krill) and lacks the complexity of Thai fish sauce but these generalisations may be misleading because within Thailand there are many varieties of fish sauce.

 

   There is a distinction between sauce made from fresh water fish and sea water krill. Flavours can also vary enormously. Fish sauce made for export is mild. Fish sauce for domestic use is stronger and there is also an artisanal fish sauce tradition: most great chefs will not use mass market nam pla. I am sure the same is true of Vietnam and other Asian countries.

 

   But whichever quality of fish sauce Thai cooks use, the truth is that Thai people do not know how to cook their own cuisine without Nam Pla. If you go to Thailand and order a vegetarian Thai meal then, unless you go to an upmarket place and emphasise how much of strict vegetarian you are, nam Pla will be used in the cooking no matter what they tell you.

 

   I do feel bad for strict vegetarians because they are often misled. But one way of looking at it is that even when nam pla is used in the cooking they cannot tell. The great thing about umami fish flavourings is that no matter how fishy they may taste that fishiness disappears in the cooking process while imparting a savoury flavour to the food.

 

   In the West chefs routinely use anchovies in cooking for a hit of umami. They don’t necessarily tell you this so even people who refuse to have their pizza or bruschetta topped with anchovies at Italian restaurants will happily eat an anchovy-spiked pasta sauce or main course later in the meal without realising that they are eating the same anchovies they refused to eat with their pizzas.

 

"But the idea of garum still fascinates imaginative chefs. One of the many innovations that Rene Redzepi introduced at Noma was the creation of a modern garum flavouring."

   The Romans were probably the first to recognise the unique ability of some fish to flavour dishes without making them too fishy. Classic texts tell us that garum, a fermented fish sauce, was a primary ingredient in the cooking of Ancient Rome. Nobody alive has ever tasted the original garum so we can only speculate about the flavour.

 

   But archaeologists came upon jars of garum while examining Pompeii, a city that was killed off by an eruption from the Vesuvius volcano. The eruption did not entirely destroy the city and the volcanic ash preserved enough of it to allow us to have a glimpse of life in the Roman Empire.

 

   Archeologists found that the garum jars still contained traces of garum and sent these traces for scientific examination. Tests showed that garum was remarkably like Asian fish sauce and probably imparted a similar flavour to dishes.

 

   This similarity had already been the subject of much culinary speculation with two schools of thought emerging. One says that Europe and Asia created similar fish sauces but separately. Another says that traders brought Roman garum to Asia and created the local fish sauce industry.

 

   It’s hard to know what the truth is but it’s interesting that while most foods and eating practices we consider East Asian are Chinese in origin (chopsticks, soya sauce, etc.) there is no great fermented fish sauce tradition in China. So where did the fish sauce phenomenon come from?

 

   Could it have been from Europe?

 

   It is impossible to be sure and anyway garum has vanished in modern Italy and is never used in today’s kitchens. There is, however, a descendant that survives: colatura, a fermented anchovy sauce made in much the same way in Southern Italy as nam pla is in Thailand. But Colatura is stronger, more expensive and does not form a central part of the cuisine being used mainly for its fishiness which shows up in the cooked dishes.

 

   But the idea of garum still fascinates imaginative chefs. One of the many innovations that Rene Redzepi introduced at Noma was the creation of a modern garum flavouring. The idea caught on among his many disciples so you will find garum in trendy European and American kitchens.

 

   Redzepi’s idea of a garum went beyond fish. At his Noma residency in Sydney a decade ago, he made a garum from fermenting kangaroo meat. He then used that garum to flavour local snow crab in a precedent-setting dish. Unfortunately Noma never repeats a dish so I doubt if he will ever serve it again.

 

   But all is not lost. The wizards at Noma Products have created an entirely vegetarian mushroom garum which I stock my kitchen with. It adds the same sort of flavours as the original garum (I think but who can be sure?).

 

   I use it all the time because I love umami flavours and the other day, I put it to the ultimate test: I used it instead of nam pla in Thai dishes. It worked. Unlike most vegetarian nam pla substitutes which are variations on soya this relies on fermentation and the umami flavours of mushrooms. (You can buy it on the net from Noma Products.)

 

  I am an umami nut myself so obviously nam pla plays a large role in my life and I am always willing to experiment as should you. So the next time you make an omelette add a little nam pla to the egg mixture. Fish sauce makes salad dressings come alive. It will add a little something to most non-Thai oriental dishes: a satay sauce for example.

 

   I find that Thai restaurants abroad hold back on the nam pla and the chilli so I always ask for nam pla Prik which is small sliced chillis in nam pla. It pulls most dishes together.

 

   And I don’t worry about fishiness. I don’t like strong fish flavours or very smelly fish. In Thailand, for example, I always ask them not to add the dried fish seasoning they finish Pad Thai with.

 

   But the flavour of nam pla is different. My wife does not like fish and fish don’t like her. (Just ask the oysters that have imposed terrible vengeance on her.) But she eats more Nam Pla than many Thai people. Some evenings at home, she will make herself a bowl of tasty rice (not necessarily Thai Jasmine: Gobindobhog or Kamini are fine too) pour a little Prik Nam Pla on top and make that her entire dinner.

 

   Obviously the ancient Romans were on to something even if the true impact of their fish sauce was only felt thousands of miles away and centuries later!