On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 457

fermentedfishproducts,andEuropeansa
handful.Theseincludetheoriginalsushi,
whichwasnotapristinelyfreshpieceoffish
onmildlyvinegaredrice!HereI’lldescribe
someofthemorecommonones.
Asian Fish Pastes and Sauces Asian
fermented fish pastes and sauces are vital
manifestations of a preparation that has
mostly disappeared in Europe but was once
well known asgarum orliquamen, the fish
sauce of Rome (see box, p. 235). (Modern
ketchup, a sweet-sour tomato condiment,
owes its name tokecap, an Indonesian salty
fish condiment.) Fish sauces play the same
role that soy sauces do in regions where soy
doesn’t grow well, and were probably the
originalmodelforsoysauce.
Fishpastesandsaucesaretwophasesof
thesamesimplepreparation.Amassoffish
orshellfishismixedwithsalttogivean
overallsaltconcentrationbetween10%and


30%,andsealedinaclosedcontainerforfrom
onemonth(forpastes)to24months(for
sauces).Fishpastestendtohaverelatively
strongfishandcheesenotes,whilethemore
thoroughlytransformedfishsaucesaremore
meatyandsavory.Themostprizedfishsauces
comefromthefirsttappingofthemass;after
boiling,flavoring,and/oraging,theyplaythe

leadroleindippingsauces.Second-quality
saucesfromre-extractionofthemassmaybe
supplementedwithcaramel,molasses,or
roastedrice,andareusedincookingtoadd
depthtotheflavorofacomplexdish.
SourFish:TheOriginalSushiandGravlax
There are remarkable parallel traditions in
AsiaandScandinaviainwhichfisharestored
with carbohydrate-rich foods that bacteria
ferment to produce acids that preserve the
fish.Thesetraditionshavegivenbirthtomore
widelypopularbutunfermentedpreparations:
sushiandgravlax.