What Is This Stinky Stuff?

This is an article I recently submitted to a magazine in hopes of publication.

Southeast Asians use it like Kindergarten kids here use ketchup. Fish sauce is an absolute must in recipes from Angkor Wat to Yogyakarta (give me a break, I couldn’t find a Southeast Asian city that started with ‘Z’). You’ve probably tasted it and didn’t even know that you had. If you’ve ever had spring rolls, it’s quite likely you were presented with a bowl of smelly translucent liquid to spoon over them or to dip them in. This was probably fish sauce.
Some of you may even have been bold enough to inquire “What is this stinky stuff?” only to be answered with the ever enigmatic “Fish Sauce.”
The first time that I learned this delightfully salty sauce’s name, a thousand possibilities went through my head as to what exactly it might be. As a chef I first suspected that ‘fish sauce’ entailed a reduction of the juices and fats of a cooked fish of some sort. Then I thought that perhaps it might be a ‘sauce for fish’, and could thus have been constituted of God knows what. I even bemusingly entertained the idea of someone squeezing all the juice out of a raw fish into our little side bowl. Little did I know that this last idea was the most accurate.
Having been exposed to numerous hours of food safe training and kitchen sanitation lessons, when I finally looked up the true origins of fish sauce, I was initially horrified. If it’s a sauce that you already love, and you still don’t know what it is or how it’s made, I’ll advise you not to read any further. If you have the courage, (and the stomach for it), then read on.
Fish sauce, called "nam bplah" in Thai, or literally "fish water," is the water in the flesh of fish that is extracted in the process of prolonged salting and fermentation. It’s made from small fish that would otherwise have little value.
For fish sauce to be at its most palatable, it’s crucial that the fish be as fresh as possible. The fish are taken right off of the fishing boats as they come in, then mixed with sea salt – two to three parts fish to one part salt. From there, they’re put into large earthenware jars or wooden casks, lined on the top and bottom with more salt. A woven bamboo mat is placed over the fish and weighted down with heavy rocks to keep the rotting carcasses from floating when water inside them begins to ooze out.
The jars and casks of fermenting dead fish are then left in the hot Southeast Asian sun for anywhere from 9 months to a year. Occasionally the jars will be opened, allowing the hot sun to further dissolve and digest the fish into the resulting fluid, and to air them out a bit. It’s this sunning process that results in the finest fish sauces.
I managed to overcome my initial horror with the logical conclusion that I had never heard of anyone dying from eating fish sauce, and that it was perfectly safe. Quickly my taste for the little sauce that came with my spring rolls returned, and soon I found myself in the Asian foods isle looking for fish sauce. I’d asked around a bit, and my understanding was that there could be dramatic differences in the quality of fish sauces. Some of the low end variety add salt water to the mix, others don’t sun as often, etc. Golden Boy Brand, (the label shows a big smiling baby holding a bottle of the sauce) was recommended as one of the better varieties.
I bought the sauce and I also bought the makings for some spring rolls. I got the stuff home, whipped up the spring rolls, dipped them into a dish of the sauce, and nearly vomited. I have since learned that fish sauce straight up is not a good thing. Not to the culinary tourist anyway.
Apparently the fish sauce that one is provided with when one orders spring rolls isn’t actually fish sauce. It’s a sauce that uses fish sauce as one of it’s primary ingredients, unfortunately no one has proposed a name for it in English yet. Until now. And I propose that we call it…’Spring Roll Sauce’.
Here, for your dining pleasure, is my recipe for spring roll sauce.
Spring Roll Sauce
½ cup rice vinegar (regular white vinegar lacks the necessary sweetness)
½ cup fish sauce
4 tbsp lime juice
4 tbsps sugar
½ cup water
2 tbsp chili garlic sauce
I like to heat the water in a small pot and dissolve the sugar into it, before adding it to the rest of the ingredients. I’d also avoid allowing the vinegar to come into contact with metal. I don’t know if it’s just me, but whenever my vinegar has touched metal it makes my molars contract. Probably just me.
Once I’ve made this mixture I store it in a sealed bottle in my pantry. Do not refrigerate it as this may cause the sauce to crystallize. When you are ready to serve it, I suggest that you garnish each little bowl with a few shredded carrots for some added color and freshness.
And there you have it. Now you know that fish sauce is the water that oozes out of dead fish after spending 9 months in the Southeast Asian sun packed in salt.
Mmmmmm good! Happy dipping!