Fish sauce: South East Asia's favourite condiment

cquired taste takes some exposure and experience. You need to have lived enough to appreciate decadence. There are precious few people who take to runny French cheeses, coffee or caviar as a kid. I remember how disgusted I was when I tried olives for the first time. A six-year-old would really rather have had a cake.

I was twenty when I got the first sniff of fish sauce but I did not yet have enough mileage. I was instantly turned off. The concept of just-one-notch-before-decay fragrance was too advanced for me. The fact that I just started treading the militant vegan path did not help either. It took me a few years before I learnt to appreciate nam pla's (that's what they call fish sauce in Thailand) flavour.

Fish sauce is made by mixing anchovy-like fish, salt and water and let nature take its course. The result is a clear brownish liquid with a pungent flavour. It has a wide coinage in mainland South East Asia and the Philippines as well as in parts of Southern China were it is referred to as "fish dew" (魚露). South and west of the Thai border it, however, suddenly loses popularity. Only ethnic Chinese use it in cooking there.

These days I can't imagine cooking without it. A bit of fish sauce improves nearly any savoury dish, even some European ones, but shush, don't tell anyone!

Fish sauce is known as nước mắm in Vietnam, aek jot (어장) in Korea, teuk trei in Cambodia, patis in the Philippines, nam pa in Laos.


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Thai language school and translation agency in Bangkok, Thailand offering Thai, Chinese, English, Japanese, Russian and Laotian (Lao, Isarn, Isaan) language courses.