One of my coworkers was married to a Laotian woman and as such married into a large Laotian community. One day we went to the Asian supermarket and we bought all the stuff to make green papaya salad and larb. He brought three specific things from home for this: a weird aluminum cauldron, a bamboo basket to put on it (to make sticky rice) and a repurposed instant coffee bottle full of the strangest looking sludge. It looked kind of like peering into a chewing tobacco spit bottle. This was a bottle of homemade padaek[1] and he said it was like liquid gold in the community he lived in. It was foul as hell to smell but we did a taste test of the papaya salad before and after mixing it in and sure enough it was so much better with the padaek. It was an eye opening experience and since then I've always had a fish sauce bottle in my fridge. I even use a little of it in things like spaghetti sauce.

Anyway if you have a chance to get your hands on a little homemade padaek, definitely do it. Would kill for some, myself. Also, share new foods with friends if they are open to it. I am very fond of that memory. I had never been exposed to those dishes before and even that small experience broadened my world in a simple, but meaningful way.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padaek

this seems to be a trope. Mark Kurlansky (who is cited later in this fantastic article!) wrote an excellent book called “Cheesecake” whose central plot line concerns a bakery trying to make Cato’s cheesecake, an ancient Roman cheesecake recipe that is often recognized as the “first” cheesecake for whom a recipe was published. Except the bakery/restaurant is Greek, and the owners, who are also Greeks, are convinced that the Romans stole this recipe from them.

As for the liquid gold itself: fish sauce is unbelievable. Elevates dishes as much as its smell nauseates. I was shocked to learn that fish sauce is legitimate just fish and salt!

It's pretty simple to make.

I also buy from Italians at a farmers market here in Switzerland rotten anchovies packed in salt and ground peppercorns. Stinks but when you add one to pasta sauce you're making the smell disappears and tons of glutamates are added.

Weeks later, the rotted fish stench just wouldn't fade from my book of Beethoven sonatas. I ended up throwing it away.

One thing I am “stealing” from SEA is fish sauce in scrambled eggs. Feels almost like a cheat code.

this seems to be a trope. Mark Kurlansky (who is cited later in this fantastic article!) wrote an excellent book called “Cheesecake” whose central plot line concerns a bakery trying to make Cato’s cheesecake, a cheesecake often recognized as the “first” cheesecake for whom a recipe was published. Except the bakery/restaurant is Greek, and the owners, who are also Greeks, are convinced that the Romans stole this recipe from them.

As for the liquid gold itself: fish sauce is unbelievable. Elevates dishes as much as its smell nauseates. I was shocked to learn that fish sauce is legitimate just fish and salt!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q5QhGnEKUM

Addendum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvF2m57_Usg

Worcestershire sauce is a descendent of garum.

I highly recommend avoiding going anywhere near them.

I'm told if you want a sense of it, add knobs of soft blue cheese to your cuscous.