Pantry · Flavorings

Fish sauce

The salt of Vietnam and Thailand: fish, time, and a smell that becomes sweetness in the pot.

Salted, fermented fish — usually anchovy — pressed into a clear amber liquid · Also called nước mắm, nam pla, patis, aekjeot · From Mainland Southeast Asia, then any kitchen that wanted the sea in a teaspoon

A bottle of amber fish sauce and a small saucer on a stone counter.

The journey

Fish sauce is not a stunt. Vietnamese nước mắm and Thai nam pla are how those kitchens salt a salad, a soup, and a marinade. The first sniff is the sea. The taste, once it hits lime and sugar, is the cuisine.

Eighteen recipes in the Thai, Vietnamese, and Korean volumes name it. Soy is not a substitute. They can share a table. They do not share a fish.

Public-domain botanical illustration of lemongrass — a Southeast Asian kitchen neighbor of fish sauce. — Matilda Smith, Hooker's Icones Plantarum (1907) · Public domain. Source

In the kitchen

Start with less than you think, then add lime. A good bottle smells funky and tastes clean. A cheap one tastes only of salt and rust.

Nuoc cham is fish sauce, lime, sugar, chile, and garlic. If you can make that, you understand the jar.

Healers and the table

Southeast Asian tables treated fermented fish as everyday salt and protein. The comfort is the meal.

Fish sauce in a salad is lunch. It is not medical advice.

Traditional uses are part of the story of this spice. They are not medical advice.

Used in these ComidaTime kitchens

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