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Fish sauce is a liquid condiment made from fish or krill that have been coated in Edible salt and fermented for up to two years. It is used as a staple seasoning in East Asian cuisine and Southeast Asian cuisine, particularly Burmese cuisine, Cambodia, Lao cuisine, Filipino cuisine, Thai cuisine, and Vietnam. Some garum-related fish sauces have been used in the West since the Roman times.
Due to its ability to add a savory umami flavor to dishes, it has been embraced globally by chefs and home cooks. The umami flavor in fish sauce is due to its glutamate content.
Fish sauce is used as a seasoning during or after cooking, and as a base in . Soy sauce is regarded by some in the West as a vegetarian alternative to fish sauce though they are very different in flavor.
By 50-100 BC, demand for fish sauces and in China had fallen drastically, with fermented bean products becoming a major trade commodity. Fish sauce, however, developed massive popularity in Southeast Asia. Food scholars traditionally divide East Asia into two distinct condiment regions, separated by a bean-fish divide: Southeast Asia, mainly using fermented fish (Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia), and Northeast Asia, using mainly fermented beans (China, Korea, Japan). Fish sauce re-entered China in the 17th and 18th centuries, brought from Vietnam and Cambodia by Chinese traders up the coast of the southern provinces Guangdong and Fujian.
The Ancient Rome made a similar condiment called either garum or liquamen. According to Pliny the Elder, "garum consists of the guts of fish and other parts that would otherwise be considered refuse so that garum is really the liquor from putrefaction." Natural History Pliny, the Elder. LoebClassics.com Garum was made in the Roman outposts of Spain almost exclusively from mackerel by salting the scrap fish innards, and then sun fermenting the flesh until it fell apart, usually for several months. The brown liquid would then be strained, bottled, and sold as a condiment. Remains of Roman fish salting facilities can still be seen, including in Algeciras in Spain and near Setúbal in Portugal. The process lasted until the 16th century when garum makers switched to anchovy and removed the innards.
Garum was ubiquitous in Classical Roman cooking. Mixed with wine it was known as oenogarum, or with vinegar, oxygarum, or mixed with honey, meligarum. Garum was one of the trade specialties in Hispania Baetica. Garum was frequently maligned as smelling bad or rotten, being called, for example, "evil-smelling fish sauce" and is said to be similar to modern colatura di alici, a fish sauce used in Neapolitan cuisine.
In English language garum was formerly translated as fish pickle. The original Worcestershire sauce is a related product because it is fermented and contains anchovies.
Once the original draft has been made, some fish sauces will be produced through a re-extraction of the fish mass via boiling. To improve the visual appearance and add taste, second-pass fish sauces often have added caramel, molasses, or roasted rice. They are thinner, and less costly. Some volume manufacturers of fish sauce will also water down a first-press to manufacture more products.
Fish sauce that has been only briefly fermented has a pronounced fishy taste. Extended fermentation reduces this and gives the product a nuttier, richer and more savory flavor.Julalak Chuprom, Preeyanuch Bovornreungroj, Mehraj Ahmad, Duangporn Kantachote, Toshiki Enomoto, Statistical optimization for the improved production of an extracellular alkaline nuclease by halotolerant Allobacillus halotolerans MSP69: Scale-up approach and its potential as flavor enhancer of fish sauce, Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology, Volume 8, 2016, Pages 236-247 An anonymous article, "Neuc-num", in Denis Diderot and d'Alembert's 18th-century Encyclopédie, states: "It is said that Europeans become accustomed enough to this type of sauce".
Southeast Asians generally use fish sauce as a cooking sauce. However, there is a sweet and sour version of this sauce which is used more commonly as a dipping sauce.
Patis is nearly always cooked prior to consumption, even when used as an accent to or other raw dishes. Patis is also used as an ingredient in cooked dishes, including a rice porridge called arroz caldo, as a condiment for fried fish or an umami accent in a common dish, sinigang. Patis is also used in place of table salt in meals to enhance the flavor of the food, where it can either be dashed from a dispensing bottle onto the food, or poured into a saucer and mixed with calamansi and and used as a dipping sauce.
Historically, there were two types of fish sauce made in Thailand: that made from freshwater fish, pla soi, and that made from saltwater fish, pla kratak. Either fish is fermented for at least eight months, three parts fish to two parts salt. The resulting mash is filtered. This yields the best fish sauce called the "base". The dregs are then mixed with water and salt and again fermented for three to four months. This yields a second-grade fish sauce, mostly used in cooking.
In 2014, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the import of Thai fish sauces due to a lack of information about tests for botulinum toxin. The toxin can cause death if more than 0.5 are consumed. The Thai Office of Food Safety and Quality then tested 48 brands of fish sauce to determine the content of botulinum toxin in the products. Of 48 brands tested, 28 were genuine fish sauces from 18 production sites in 12 provinces. Twenty samples from production sites in eight provinces were adulterated fish sauce. Tests showed that none were contaminated with botulinum toxin types A, B, E, and F and were free of Clostridium botulinum bacteria. In 2018, rumours again surfaced concerning banned Thai fish sauce.
Fish sauce has a 300-year history dating back to the Champa kingdom of the
/ref> Phan Thiết can be identified with the birthplace of Vietnamese fish sauce. Before 1693, Phan Thiết was a territory of Champa. The Vietnamese occupied the area in 1693 and commercialized the fish sauce by keeping it in barrels and selling throughout the country. This business was popularized by Trần Gia Hòa who was born in 1872. There is a fish sauce museum in Phan Thiết. Popular brands in the US include Mega Chef, Red Boat, 3 Crabs, Golden Boy, and Hòn Phan Thiết.
Vietnamese fish sauces are made with anchovies, mackerel, scabbard fish, and salt. High mercury concentration can be found in larger fish, especially in predator fish like scabbard fish. They do not have any additives like sugar, hydrolyzed protein, or preservatives. Vietnamese prefer sauces without a strong smell, and transparent with a deep golden amber color. "First press" fish sauce, meaning the sauce is bottled from the first time the fermenting barrels are drained, also indicates quality. Lastly, when measuring the nitrogen level of fish sauces (°N, or grams of nitrogen per liter), most fish sauce on the market falls within the mid 20°N range. Anything over 30°N is considered high-grade, and 40°N is optimal.
Nước chấm is a Vietnamese prepared fish-based condiment (also referred to as a "sauce") that is savory, lightly sweet and salty tasting, and can be sour and spicy if lime and are added. The main components are fish sauce, water, and sugar.
Fish paste is made much like fish sauce, except that it is not fermented as long, and the fish is kept along with its liquid extract, not just the extract. Mắm can be used as a base condiment in dipping sauces with additional ingredients, used in soups, stir-fries and meat loaves, or eaten with rice as a main dish.
In January 2016, the Institute of Food Technologists published a study asserting that using Vietnamese fish sauce as a Salt substitute (salt) in chicken broth, tomato sauce, and coconut curry reduced the amount of sodium chloride by 10 to 25 percent while still maintaining the perceived deliciousness, saltiness, and overall flavor intensity. This idea is similar to the use of umami such as MSG to increase flavor intensity and reduce sodium requirement.
According to the General Statistics Office, in 2020, the output of fish sauce reached nearly 380 million liters. According to the Vietnam Fish Sauce Association, the output of fish sauce in 2023 is expected to reach about 420 million liters. The reason for this growth is due to the increasing domestic demand and the strong development of the fish sauce export industry. Vietnamese fish sauce is currently exported to more than 60 countries and territories around the world. According to statistics, Vietnam currently has 783 fish sauce production facilities with 1,500 participating farming households, producing about 250 million liters of fish sauce per year. Of which, 35 facilities produce fish sauce for export to 20 markets.
Across the Korean Peninsula, aekjeot (액젓, literally "liquid jeotgal"), a type of fish sauce usually made from fermented anchovies or kkanari(sand lance), is used as a crucial ingredient in many types of kimchi, both for taste and fermentation.
In Jeju Island, eoganjang (어간장), made of fermented godori (young chub mackerel) or horse mackerel, is used in place of soy sauce.
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