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dhole
2008-04-04 07:30 am UTC (link)

Well, it does seem that garum (or liquamen, or allec -- those might have been different things for some people, but they're often used to mean the same thing) was pretty similar to the Southeast Asian fish sauces. So while ketchup probably isn't a lineal descendant of garum, it does seem to originate in a fermented fish paste of some sort.

The bit on the origin of garum is a bit, er, speculative.

Yes, I think that everyone is interested in ancient fish sauces. Everyone, I say.

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	mistressrenet 2008-04-04 03:17 pm UTC (link)
	I like fish sauce. I think I like it more than ketchup. (Reply to this)(Parent)

msmanna
2008-04-04 08:11 pm UTC (link)

Yes, I think that everyone is interested in ancient fish sauces. Everyone, I say.

I heard a fascinating talk from a woman who recreates Roman recipes, about how much difficulty she had persuading a Thai company which makes fish sauce to tell her how they did it. Apparently they didn't feel that sensitive Westerners were ready to hear 'we dump fish guts in a big, big vat, leave them to rot, and then strain the juices out'. In which they were quite wrong, because that was exactly what she did want to hear.

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	blackjackrocket 2008-04-05 09:26 am UTC (link)
	Clearly that company has never heard of Good Eats. Brown spent a great deal of the pad thai episode talking about how they make fish sauce. Although it wasn't fish guts, it was whole fish. But the rest was there. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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