479: Fish Sauce

Matthew:

I'm Matthew.

Molly:

And I'm Molly.

Matthew:

And this is Spilled Milk, the show where we cook something delicious, eat it all, and you can't have any.

Molly:

Today, we are talking about fish sauce.

Matthew:

Yes. As usual has taken us way too long to get to this episode, but here we are.

Molly:

Yeah, episode 479 and we're finally getting around to talking about one of the world's greatest ingredients and condiments.

Matthew:

As they say, 79 dudes. What would a 79?

Molly:

God, I'm trying to picture what it could do.

Matthew:

It's like 10 extra of something=, maybe like 10 fingers.

Molly:

You know what it is, it's when you elbow your spouse in the head while you're sleeping, the seven is an elbow, the nine is your partner's head.

Matthew:

Okay. Yeah, that sounds pretty sexy to me.

Molly:

It's so sexy. Oh yeah.

Matthew:

I'm going to say like that's probably my number one favorite sex thing is getting elbowing or getting elbowed unexpectedly.

Molly:

There's so many limbs we're working with at any given time.

Matthew:

That is true.

Molly:

And they're like walls and stuff, there's inevitably got to be a moment when somebody gets injured accidentally.

Matthew:

Yeah, there are walls and stuff. You're right.

Molly:

Okay, all right. Well, this is our fish sauce episode everybody.

Matthew:

We're going to have a special guest in a little bit that we're very excited for, but let's start by talking about our memory lane. How about that? Wait, before we do memory lane, can I tell people about the dream I had?

Molly:

Fine. Okay, Matthew is like every other person everywhere who wants to talk about their dreams.

Matthew:

I know, but this is a pretty good one, I think I'm pretty judicious with which dreams I share and which ones I don't, but in this one, Molly and I had to meet up at a crowded cafe because I had very important news to share, which was that our cat in the dream had a new name and the new name was Jim Sandwich.

Molly:

Spelled J-I-M.

Matthew:

Yeah, just like first name Jim, last name, Sandwich. Not like a Jim Sandwich as if that was a thing, just Jim Sandwich.

Molly:

And Matthew, like in your dream, was it COVID times like were you stressed about meeting [crosstalk 00:02:21].

Matthew:

Oh, yes, absolutely. We should not have been at this cafe.

Molly:

Oh my God. but you were like, you've got to know about Jim Sandwich.

Matthew:

And I felt like really conflicted.

Molly:

Oh my God. Have you had many dreams where you're like in public places and you're not wearing a mask?

Matthew:

All the time.

Molly:

Yes, in my dreams, I've always been in the public place for a while and I've hugged people and stuff and then I'm like, but none of us are wearing masks.

Matthew:

I think it's the new naked in dreams.

Molly:

I think you're right, I wonder how long this is going to go on.

Matthew:

I think forever.

Molly:

Okay, all right.

Matthew:

All right. Let's talk about fish sauce.

Molly:

Okay, all right. Well, wait, let's start a memory lane like we always do.

Matthew:

Yes.

Molly:

And I'm going to go first.

Matthew:

Please do.

Molly:

So as everyone knows, I grew up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where actually there was some pretty great Vietnamese food and that was my first introduction to fish sauce. I remember in the strip mall where there used to be Skaggs Alpha Beta, and later Albertsons, there was a Vietnamese restaurant called... I can't remember whether it was Lido or The Lido.

Matthew:

Okay, I remember you mentioning this before.

Molly:

And that was my first time ever having the dish bun like a vermicelli noodle dish with, in this case I like to order it with shrimp and it would come with Nuoc Cham to be poured over the top. But anyway, we're going to talk about Nuoc Cham, right?

Matthew:

Yeah.

Molly:

Okay, great. Anyway, but also I think that pretty much every dish there was my first encounter with Vietnamese food, and therefore also because Vietnamese food was where fish sauce came into my life. That was like, the lido was just splashed with fish sauce, it splashed fish sauce all over my life in the best possible way.

Matthew:

Exactly.

Molly:

And I loved it and I couldn't believe it when I later found some recipes for bun and permutations on it and how simple it is to make delicious food when you're using something as flavorful as fish sauce.

Matthew:

Yeah, and that to me is kind of like the story of East Asian cooking, like whether you're looking at like a more soy sauce oriented cuisine or a more fish sauce oriented cuisine, like East Asia is like where fermentation and fermented and highly flavorful ingredients have like reached their heights. And so, it's easy to make things delicious when you're working with ingredients like that.

Molly:

Matthew, tell me about your fish sauce memory lane.

Matthew:

Okay, so mine is very similar, I remember a Thai restaurant that we used to get takeout from mostly when I was growing up in Portland and I want to say it was called Tara Thai house. Again, I think I've mentioned this on the show before, that's what came to mind but that also could be a different Thai restaurant that I went to at some other point.

Matthew:

Anyway, I remember it like particularly the stir fry dishes, like they had this flavor that I was like, "Oh, this is very different from what I'm used to in Chinese stir fries and I like it." That flavor was definitely coming from fish sauce, and then later, at some point after I decided I wanted to be a food writer, I was like, "I want to learn to cook Thai food," I think that was like when I bought fish sauce for the first time and like learn that that was where that flavor was coming from.

Matthew:

And I went to Thailand a couple of times and my second ever published food article was in the Seattle times and it was about fish sauce, the headline was the salt of Southeast Asia, and it was just kind of one of your basic white guy writes about ingredient articles. I will link to it, it's not really worth your time.

Molly:

What year do you think that was, Matthew?

Matthew:

I think it was 2001.

Molly:

Okay.

Matthew:

Maybe '02, somewhere around there.

Molly:

And that I think was when at least like mainstream food publications in the US started getting excited about fish sauce.

Matthew:

Yes, absolutely.

Molly:

And this would probably be like millennia after other people got excited about fish sauce.

Matthew:

Yes, that's exactly right. Should we talk about a little bit about the history and production of fish sauce?

Molly:

Yeah, let's talk about this because it's so interesting to me. Well, we're going to get to this but that fermenting fish has shown up in so many great cuisines around the world.

Matthew:

Yeah, so fish sauce, it's a fermented sauce that is made from salt and anchovies or other small fish or sometimes shellfish, but typically you have small oily fish and you really just layer the fish and salt in barrels, you ferment it for up to two years and then you lightly press it and the salt drips out, the sauce drips out.

Molly:

So wait, hold on. Can we just talk for a second about what is actually going on in that fermentation? Is it like the proteins of the fish that are...

Matthew:

Yes.

Molly:

What's happening in there?

Matthew:

So I mean, there are a lot of chemical reactions going on in there, but basically like bacteria are converting, complex carbohydrates into simpler sugars and also releasing gas and acid.

Molly:

Okay.

Matthew:

Yeah, there's a lot going on. The flavor changes enormously, like a younger fish sauce is going to taste more fishy at a longer age fish sauce, like the longer it goes, the less it tastes like anything resembling fish.

Molly:

So wait, okay. It's mostly made from anchovies, but what other fish would go into making fish sauce?

Matthew:

Oh, that's a good question. There are so many different fish that people eat that I feel like every time I read a food article or research for an episode that's vaguely fish related, I come up with a new fish name like that I've never heard of before. So I think probably the answer is that-

Molly:

All kinds.

Matthew:

... even the word anchovy probably refers to like 17 different species of fish and like they'd catch like the ocean scum bee or something. And it's whatever fish people are eating in the area where they're making the fish sauce they are going to turn that fish into fish sauce. And fish sauce is a by-product like originally the point was to make like fish paste, yes.

Molly:

It's something that the ocean scum bee, it reminded me last night. So we've been watching Arrested Development lately after watching whatever, like right now we're also watching Peaky Blinders which I know you've watched.

Matthew:

No, no, I haven't, I just liked the name.

Molly:

Oh, I thought you've watched Peaky Blinders.

Matthew:

No, is it good?

Molly:

So at first I was really annoyed by the fact that the music is all like Nick Cave and like contemporary stuff when this is like set in like the 19 teens, it really was bothering me all the electric guitars. It really bugged me. Now, I'm fine with it because I just want to fuck Kili and Murphy, and so does my spouse for the record, we're both into this. But after an episode of Peaky Blinders or two, we usually want something super light to say less into bedtime.

Molly:

And so lately that's been Arrested Development, and last night was an episode in which Gob, can't remember the name of the woman that he married like under duress. And he's getting divorced from her, he's been served papers but he can't remember what her name is. And the name that he guesses is [Queendi 00:10:08].

Matthew:

That's pretty good.

Molly:

It's a perfect like, you know what? Somebody gets it just right, like a name that is never going to happen that could not possibly be real but it's so close to real.

Matthew:

Yeah, like Jim Sandwich.

Molly:

Like Jim Sandwich or [Queendi 00:10:27] or the Oceans Scum Bee.

Matthew:

Yes, because I mean there are a lot of fish with like sort of purposely unappetizing days, like isn't there a fish called like a crappie that's spelled like crappie.

Molly:

Oh no.

Matthew:

Yeah, like C-R-A-P-P-I-E, this is like a fish.

Molly:

Oh God. You're right, I didn't know it was pronounced crappie though, I just thought it was crappie.

Matthew:

Yeah, like a fluke, that's a fish.

Molly:

That doesn't seem good, that does a flounder, that doesn't seem good.

Matthew:

Yeah. I mean, it seems good if you're a little mermaid.

Molly:

Or if you're going to have it for dinner.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Molly:

Anyway, okay. I'm really glad that we covered this and now you can go back to telling me about things.

Matthew:

Okay, it's my favorite segment, I'm telling you about things. I mean, you had your turn earlier when you explained what a 79 is. So all right, so there is a lot of parallel between fish sauce and fish ingredients and soy ingredients. So the point that on Wikipedia, Wikipedia says, "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." Isn't that a great way of thinking about it?

Molly:

God, that's brilliant. I'm interested too in how this has happened because all of these places are like on the Water.

Matthew:

Yeah, I don't know the answer.

Molly:

Or have access to water.

Matthew:

I mean, it probably has something to do with soybeans grow a little better in these areas and fish are a little easier to catch in these areas, but that is a wild guess. In like Australia and New Zealand, they have like a marsupial version of everything.

Molly:

Oh, it's like that.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Molly:

Except they're not eating the Marsupial's. That's not a bean fish divide.

Matthew:

I think they're eating some of them.

Molly:

Oh, you're probably right. Oh my God. Matthew, save it for the cute animals segment.

Matthew:

Okay, yeah. All right, I don't think my cute animal today is a marsupial but I don't remember what it is. So we'll find out. So the parallel goes way, way back, because when we did the soy sauce episode a long ago, we talked, or maybe the Miso episode also, we talked about how soy sauce was originally a by-product of Miso Production.

Matthew:

Well, fish sauce was originally a by-product of fish and shrimp paste production and fish paste and shrimp paste are still widely used and widely eaten in Southeast Asia. Fish sauce has become more dominant but originated as like, "Okay, we're going to make this this shrimp paste for it, that's like an extremely concentrated flavoring that's using curry paste and soups and stir fries and all kinds of things."

Matthew:

And then there's this like leftover stuff and, "Oh, this leftover stuff is also a really good and to the point that people started making the leftover stuff on purpose."

Molly:

I think about like buttermilk production, okay?

Matthew:

Yeah.

Molly:

So, you can make butter and wind up with some buttermilk, but it's not the same as the thing you're going to get at the store. Right?

Matthew:

Right.

Molly:

It's fish sauce like that, like now fish sauce has become its own thing and it is a bit different from how it is when it's just a by-product, do we know that?

Matthew:

I think the answer is yes, I don't know for sure but I think probably the fish sauce you buy is like a little more refined than you would get from the old school process.

Molly:

Just a ran off.

Matthew:

Right, but not super different I don't think.

Molly:

Yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense.

Matthew:

I mean, basically like the ingredients of like a good store-bought fish sauce that's industrial produced are like fish and salt and maybe water.

Molly:

You know, it's interesting to me to think about in the history of making fish pastes and shrimp paste and stuff like that, I wonder how often people actually make it at home, like people sometimes do make like, are there people who sometimes make me so at home like...

Matthew:

Yeah, absolutely.

Molly:

Aren't Miso producers, they make it at home like they might make kimchi at home or something?

Matthew:

This is a good question.

Molly:

Maybe we could ask our guest.

Matthew:

Yeah, that's true. So we're delighted to welcome back onto the show Pailin Chongchitnant who a host Pailin's Kitchen on YouTube new video every Friday, and is author of the Hot Thai kitchen Cookbook and maintains the Hot Thai Kitchen website. This is like our go-to for all things Thai food. Pailin, welcome back to Spilled Milk.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be back.

Matthew:

And you said that if we do a fish sauce episode, you hope that you could come back and talk fish sauce. So let me start by just asking you, why did you particularly want to come back to talk fish sauce?

Pailin Chongchitnant:

I am so passionate about fish sauce, it's almost a running joke on my show that if I make dessert, people expect me to start putting it instead of vanilla or something. But I just think it's such an iconic ingredient for Thai cuisine and Southeast Asia in general. And it's also misunderstood a lot, either misunderstood or people just don't get it at all like why would you put something that smells bad into your food, right?

Matthew:

Right.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

So I like to talk about it because it is much more than it smells.

Matthew:

That's a good point.

Molly:

That sums it up so beautifully. Before we welcomed you on, we were talking a little bit about the history of fish sauce. And I found myself wondering I think about other fermented foods that you can buy but that some people also choose to make at home like kimchi or miso. Do people ever make fish sauce at home?

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Absolutely not.

Molly:

Okay, okay. I'm just wondering. It seems like it'd be very, very fragrant to make at home.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

I mean you better have neighbors pretty far away [crosstalk 00:16:23].

Molly:

Okay.

Matthew:

Okay, that's we were thinking.

Molly:

Have you talked health fish sauce is made, should we touch on that a bit?

Matthew:

Yeah, let's do it.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Okay, so the way fish sauce is made is actually quite simple, you take anchovies and you dump it in a commercially it'd be like a big swimming pool and you put a bunch of salt on top of it and then you just let that rot. So you can imagine it smells very strong. But as the salt draws out moisture from the fish and the enzymes and the fish starts doing their thing, it breaks down and it turns everything into liquid, basically. Well, not everything. It turns into baked mashed and they strain out any sort of bits and then the liquid is the fish sauce.

Molly:

And how long does it take to go through that process?

Pailin Chongchitnant:

12 to 18 months is the most common, people do it up to two years. So, in similar ways with other fermented foods, the longer you keep things the more complex they become and things like that but also the more expensive it becomes. So commercially, they kind of find a balance somewhere, so I think 12 months is sort of the minimum.

Matthew:

Yeah. Have you ever visited a fish sauce factory?

Pailin Chongchitnant:

I have not but I hear that you know you're in the right place from a mile away.

Molly:

I can only imagine.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Yeah. You come out and you can't smell anything for two days.

Matthew:

That's sounds great though.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

I would love to actually.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Yeah. I sometimes do documentaries about how ingredients are made on my show, we've done one for coconut milk and rice noodles and things, and I've always wanted to do fish sauce. And that was the plan for the year of the COVID which we didn't go anywhere, but we were almost going to go to a fish sauce factory.

Matthew:

Oh, I hope you get to do that, I want to see that video.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Yeah.

Molly:

So how do you shop for fish sauce? How much does brand matter?

Pailin Chongchitnant:

It's everything like you can ruin a dish if you don't buy a good fish sauce, so with fish sauce, you can pretty much go by price. The more expensive it is, the better it's going to be. So the thing is this, so what you have to understand is the way, what I just explained, the way fish sauce is made. That's like the pure form of fish sauce, just fish and salt, you don't add any water but what's on the market it's not that pure version.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

So what they do then is they drain off the pure fish sauce, they keep it, and then they add more salt water to the old fish and get a more diluted version. So let's call that second press even though there's no actual pressing involved. So then this diluted second press gets mixed to the first virgin press, and then they can mix it in whatever ratio they want depending on how high quality they want the final product to be.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

So the most expensive, most sort of premium brand of fish sauce is called Red Boat, they're the only one that I'm aware of that actually uses only the first press. So if you look at the ingredients, it's just fish and salt with not even water because all the water is what naturally occurs in the fish.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

And so the way I tell people is first look at the price, that's a good indication. Then look at the ingredients, if you start to see more than just fish, salt and water, that means they're starting to have to add things to make up for the fact that there's not much actual fish flavor there.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

So do you see any like MSG or any like added color, added flavor? You're going down the territory of people trying to make up for bad quality. Oh, and protein content is a really good indication because the more fish there is, the more actual protein is in there. So if you look at Red Boat, there's four grams of protein per tablespoon and then squid, which is a great like standard Thai brand like you don't want to spend a lot of money, that's a really good one but that only has two grams.

Matthew:

Oh, that's interesting.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Of protein. However, you have to be careful because some brands will add it to like a fake protein, you know what I mean? Like it'll be a cheaper brand.

Matthew:

Like hyperbolized vegetable protein or something.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Exactly or whatever like fake protein in there. So you have to look at everything sort of in combination with each other.

Matthew:

Oh, this is great to know.

Molly:

Yeah, that is so helpful.

Matthew:

So do you use Red Boat for everything or do you have different fish sauces on hand depending on how you're using this?

Pailin Chongchitnant:

I have different fish sauce on hand, Red boat is great if you are going for something where you can really taste the fish sauce, like a Thai salad or a dipping sauce because it's expensive. So if you use fish sauce to the level that I do, like it costs a lot of money. So Red Boat is great for things like that like if you're going to put Red Boat in a stir fry, that's throwing money away like you're not going to be able to taste a difference because in a stir fry or even in a curry, like it's such a strong, like a Thai curry, it's such a strong flavor, like a couple teaspoons of fish sauce, you're not going to taste it.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

So then the standard fish sauce that I use is usually squid, which is a Thai brand, but the Three Crabs which is a Vietnamese brand is also a good sort of everyday fish sauce.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Molly:

Okay, I have a random question, actually. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, so I used to co-own a restaurant and we used fish sauce in some dressings like where just kind of sneaking it into places. And so I have like a gallon jug of MegaChef that is like three quarters used and I found it at the back of my cabinet in my kitchen. Is it still safe to use? I mean, I think I've had it for years.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Oh my God. The fact that you won't reveal the number of years.

Molly:

Am I slowly going to have [crosstalk 00:22:15].

Matthew:

You haven't own that restaurant for a while.

Molly:

I haven't. What do I do?

Pailin Chongchitnant:

You throw it away. First of all, MegaChef is a good friend by the way, it's another brand from Thailand, it started to become more available now. They do put a little too much sugar in it, I find like it's good but it's sweeter than what I'd like fish sauce to be. But that's why people like it more because it tends to be more, not as jarring because it's sweeter. You know what I mean? Like it's a little more mellow, but in any case, your ancient fish sauce is not going to make you sick because the amount of salt in there it's like, it doesn't go bad but it's not going to taste good anymore.

Molly:

Okay, okay.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

The flavor deteriorates over the years or even months, and it doesn't taste quite as good if it's just been especially unrefrigerated for a long time. So I can touch on storage now that we're talking about this. In Thailand, nobody refrigerates their fish sauce because that's silly because we go through it so much but if you're not going to go through it as much as Thai people do, i.e., you don't use it every day you should refrigerate it and make sure the cap is on tight.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Sometimes it gets those salt crystals collecting on the top of the bottle and it doesn't close quite well. Make sure you clean up any sort of collected salt crystal so that the lid can close because you want to preserve the fish sauce from oxygen as much as possible. You'll notice old fish sauce gets really dark in color and the smell will be stronger, it's not quite as smooth.

Molly:

Oh my God. You are describing my giant...

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Like turns into soy sauce all of a sudden.

Molly:

It is very dark and-

Matthew:

This is good though. Now I know what I'm getting Molly for her birthday, a new thing of fish sauce.

Molly:

Oh my God. But Matthew, my birthday isn't until September.

Matthew:

Okay, your half birthday.

Molly:

Okay, oh perfect.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

But you have to taste it now and report back.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Molly:

Okay. Well, here's the thing I've been using it lately and just being like hope nobody dies.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

No, it doesn't know that.

Molly:

Anyway, okay, this is all good to know but I'm going to put it, I'm going to put a new bottle of fish sauce on the grocery list today.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Well good.

Matthew:

Okay.

Molly:

Okay. So speaking of cooking with fish sauce, if someone is new to fish sauce, how do you recommend they get to know it? What do you think is a good place to start a recipe you might recommend?

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Right, okay. So I, first of all, recommend you cooking a dish where fish sauce is naturally used, so don't start getting creative with it right away. Even though you can afterwards, but I feel like it's important to know like how fish sauce has been approved for usage by cuisines around the world. So make a Thai salad or a Thai soup, like Tom Yum soup is a really good one where you can really taste the fish sauce.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

So those are good ones or something in the Vietnamese repertoire would be good as well, but I wouldn't make a Thai curry use fish sauce because again, as we said, you can barely taste it by the time all the other herbs and spices are additive, you really want to taste fish sauce go with the Thai salad or a Thai soup. Okay?

Molly:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Oh, this is really helpful. So we'll link to a recipe then.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Yeah, what would be a good starter Thai salad coming up? Let's say like, you can link to my corn and cucumber salad, it's one of my favorite.

Matthew:

Oh that sounds great.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

It's like a green papaya salad that people are familiar with, but it uses corn and cucumber instead and it's great.

Matthew:

Okay. I think I have one last question, let's talk about prik nam pla, which I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing correctly.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

No, that's very close.

Matthew:

Fish sauce with chilis that you'll see on the table at Thai restaurants and it's very easy to make. How do you make it and what do you use it for? Because it's one of my favorite things.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

So what you use it for is basically like salt and pepper, so what we would do is if something tastes like, "Oh, it needs a little bit of oomph, we put a little bit of prik nam pla on top." And sometimes the dish that you're ordering at a restaurant will always come with like Thai fried rice, it always comes with prik nam pla, whether or not you use it, that's up to you but it's almost like you have to serve it with it because fried rice is, it's not super strongly flavored dish, it's not spicy.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

So if you want a little heat and something a little stronger then you drizzle a little prik nam pla on top. Some people always, always, always put it on their rice, no matter what it is that they're eating with, they want their rice to be seasoned with prik nam pla.

Matthew:

Oh yes.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

And it really does add sort of sharpness and personality to everything that you eat, so it's super easy to make. People always ask me for a recipe and I'm like, there is no recipe. This is what you do, you slice some Thai chilis, if you want to actually eat the chilis, you mint it small, if you just want it to infuse the spiciness and then you cut it large so you can avoid getting it onto your actual rice. You know what I mean?

Pailin Chongchitnant:

And then you just cover it with fish sauce as much as it takes to submerge the chilis, and if you wanted more spicy you add less fish sauce and less spicy, add more fish sauce. And then most of the time people will add a little squeeze of lime juice as well. And how much lime you want to, it's completely up to you but just to give you like a rough ballpark for like two tablespoons of fish sauce, you might just do like a teaspoon or two of lime juice. Yeah, and so that way your fish sauce will also have a little bit of acidity to it, and then some people get fancy and they add chopped garlic, then slice shallots but that's as fancy as it gets.

Matthew:

Yeah, no for me, it's like one of those things that like the first time I tasted it, like, "Oh, I'm going to be putting this on everything, like this is just so straightforward," like it's just a couple of really delicious things mixed together.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Yeah. And keep it in the fridge and it'll last again almost forever, I don't want to say forever because liability issues.

Matthew:

All right, Pailin, thank you so much for being on Spilled Milk again. Where can we find you online?

Pailin Chongchitnant:

You can find me at hotthaikitchen.com, that's my website with all the recipes and also on social media at Hot Thai kitchen everywhere, and on YouTube as well. On YouTube, you can look up Hot Thai Kitchen or Pailin's Kitchen, which is the actual name of the YouTube channel. So just Google me, I'll show up.

Matthew:

All right, and we will link to you in the show notes also. Thanks again for being on Spilled Milk.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

You're so welcome.

Molly:

Thank you so much, Pailin.

Pailin Chongchitnant:

Enjoy your new fish sauce.

Molly:

Thanks. So, okay. Matthew, when we left off, we were talking about the old bean fish divides, I think. Age old bean fish divide, but okay. So we've learned from Pailin a lot about stuff I had no idea about, about fish sauce.

Matthew:

Oh yeah, I learned a ton also.

Molly:

And how it's used in Thailand but how is it used in Vietnam and also like this stuff is in Europe too.

Matthew:

Yes, it is. It is hanging on in Europe by a thread kind of. So let's talk a little more about Southeast Asia first because it's used in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, like pretty much all of the countries of Southeast Asia, all the cuisines at Southeast Asia find various ways to use it.

Matthew:

I am personally most familiar with the Thai and Vietnamese ways, but so like in Vietnam, it's used like you said like in stir fries, in salads, as a all-purpose like dipping and seasoning sauce, but many, many like centuries even millennia ago now, like fish sauce was as common in Europe, especially like Southern Europe as it was in Southeast Asia today.

Matthew:

And so there was a sauce called Garum, which is sometimes called Liquamen which was used throughout the Roman Empire and wasn't really any different than Thai fish or Vietnamese fish sauce today.

Molly:

Oh, this is so interesting because I've definitely seen over the years in random historical food texts, the word Garum from the Roman Empire, but I haven't really known what it referred to.

Matthew:

Yeah, no, I know you're always seen with a historical food texts.

Molly:

I am.

Matthew:

So this was like an all-purpose seasoning sauce that was popular throughout like the Mediterranean centuries ago, and then for reasons that I do not know mostly fell out of favor with two exceptions. So there is a sauce called Colatura di Alici and that's used like in Campania in Southern Italy, that is very similar to the fish sauce as we've been talking about.

Matthew:

And then there's Worcestershire sauce which we did a whole episode on and is clearly related to this ancient Mediterranean fish sauce in the sense that it starts with a bunch of salted anchovies, but obviously it's been flavored with a bunch of other stuff too.

Molly:

And it's so interesting to me, the degree to which Worcestershire sauce is well, at least in some parts of like mainstream American cooking, it is very common like people just sort of throw it into their meatloaf or their burgers or put it on a steak or whatever. And I don't think anybody, or I think that it's not typically connected in people's minds to the way in which these fish sauces are used in Southeast Asia, but it's so common here too.

Matthew:

Yeah, no, it's an umami booster.

Molly:

That makes sense.

Matthew:

All right. Should we talk about nuoc cham?

Molly:

Yes, please. Yeah.

Matthew:

Okay, so nuoc cham is the like if you order like a bun dish in a Vietnamese restaurant nuoc cham is the sauce that comes alongside that you pour on and toss everything together. And it's made typically from fish sauce, chilis, some combination of vinegar and/or water and/or citrus juice, usually lime. And then like a little chopped garlic and maybe some shreds of carrot, anything I'm forgetting? And sugar.

Molly:

So in what respect truly does it differ from prik nam pla?

Matthew:

So prik nam pla is much like sharper and more concentrated, like you can literally just slice some Thai chilis, pour a little fish sauce on there and that is prik nam pla.

Molly:

Got it.

Matthew:

Nuoc cham is something that you can consume a larger quantity of because it has more of the body of like a dressing than intense hot sauce.

Molly:

Yes. I think about nuoc cham being lighter, waterier.

Matthew:

Yeah, absolutely. I'm trying to think about how to say without saying waterier which has like an insult, but it's not.

Molly:

No, no, it's not, it's not, it's like if you've ordered bun, you have poured a large quantity of nuoc cham probably onto it and it hasn't seemed like too much.

Matthew:

Right, yeah. You did the thing where you start by like pouring a little of it on and then you're like, "No, I'm just going to put on all the rest of this."

Molly:

Oh yeah. I usually pour like half of it on at first and then I'm like, "Ah, nope, nope. We're just going to append this thing."

Matthew:

I do exactly the same thing when I'm eating Bibimbap like I'll start with like, just one tablespoon of gochujang and then like, "How about four more tables?"

Molly:

So, okay. So Matthew, how do you tend to use this stuff at home?

Matthew:

So I mostly use it in Thai cooking although I will also use it as kind of an all-purpose umami booster. Like if I'm making like a Polonaise sauce or I think I put it in when we made meatloaf with Kenji Lopez-Alt, I think there was fish sauce in that.

Molly:

I was going to say I put fish sauce in meatloaf.

Matthew:

Yeah, absolutely.

Molly:

I also put a little bit of ketchup in there, so you've got like two sources of umami really.

Matthew:

Yeah, and one thing I was curious about, so I looked it up just before we started. I know some of our listeners are like as nerdy as me about this sort of thing it's has always seemed to me like fish sauce has more umami than soy sauce, which has a lot to begin with. And I looked it up and I wasn't able to like 100% confirm this, but I found a few charts where people had like gone into a food lab and like tested like free glutamate content of various foods and it does seem like fish sauce has a higher concentration of glutamate than soy sauce on average.

Molly:

Okay, okay. All right, I believe it. I have used it recently using my ancient fish sauce in a winter soup recipe that I make a lot that is definitely fits under the age old category of fusion for better, for worse. I know, it's a butternut squash soup that's pureed and I put a can of coconut milk in some red curry paste and fish sauce and a tiny bit of maple syrup. And I know that this sounds like a true American abomination, but it's so delicious.

Matthew:

No, it sounds good and I can imagine my head, like if you did, like, if you started with just the coconut milk and the squash and like tasted it before you put the fish sauce and you're like, "Oh, this is like cloyingly like syrupy sweet." And then like the fish sauce is going to balance everything out.

Molly:

Well, and then, then with a good sweet squeeze of lime, yes. Yeah, so yeah and I can't imagine how else I could get those flavors in there without the complexity of the fish sauce. It's really cool.

Matthew:

Yeah. I love Thai salads, we did a Thai salad episode like Thailand mentioned that that's a great way to get started with fish sauce because you can like mix it with some of the other key flavors of Thai cooking because it's typically a mix of chilis, fish sauce, sugar and lime juice. And getting that balance is really fun because you'll taste it and like quickly get to know, "Okay, this needs a little more fish sauce. This needs a little more sugar." And like, you get to this point where it just like, "And now I am going to drink a pint of this."

Molly:

Didn't we a million episodes ago, do green papaya green mango salad?

Matthew:

I think we did.

Molly:

We did because I think we probably talked about this then.

Matthew:

Yeah, I think so.

Molly:

Yeah.

Matthew:

Also, and Pailin was talking about like what brands of fish she buys, I was like feeling smug I was like, "Oh yeah, I've got Red Boat and squid on my shelf." And then I started feeling less smug when I realized, "Oh yeah. And I let them sit there until they turn black and continue using them."

Molly:

Yeah, okay. Matthew, now I have to figure out like, so do I dispose of like all this MegaChef that I bought?

Matthew:

I think, yes. It's not good anymore.

Molly:

I just pour it down the drain?

Matthew:

I think you just pour it down. I mean maybe like check-

Molly:

Do I have to move?

Matthew:

... the King County like waste disposal site and see if you're allowed to pour that down the drain. No, just pour it down the drain. It's fine.

Molly:

Okay. Well, now this is exciting though because I think I'm going to go to central market maybe, which is the nearest grocery store to me that has a really great Asian food section.

Matthew:

Yeah, get some Red Boat.

Molly:

And now I'm going to get, well maybe some Red Boat and some squid.

Matthew:

Yeah, okay.

Molly:

Yeah, anything else that we should say about fish sauce?

Matthew:

I would love to hear from listener, like if you come from a tradition of cooking, Filipino food or food Burma or Cambodia, like what are ways that you use fish sauce and cook? I feel like the one that we've really like neglected is the Philippine tradition because I know fish sauce is a huge part of that and I just don't know as much about it as I would like to.

Molly:

Yeah, I know next to nothing.

Matthew:

Contact at spilledmilkpodcast.com or someone on the Reddit is going to start a thread about it and you can post there reddit.com/r/everythingspilledmilk.

Molly:

Excellent. Matthew, should we go into our segments?

Matthew:

Let's go into our segments.

Molly:

I love going into segments.

Matthew:

Me too. I call that an 89.

Molly:

Oh, you want to kick it off with Spilled Milk?

Matthew:

I do. So we got an email from listener Caitlin who asks, "When I first started listening to your podcast, I was just learning how to cook. So thank you for being part of my food journey." We've like not infrequently get messages from people to say, like, "I've been listening to your podcast so long when I started, I was 12 and..."

Molly:

Yeah, I sometimes get those about my blog too and I'm like, "Oh wow. Yes, yes. You would have been 12. It was ancient history when I started this thing. Go on."

Matthew:

When I think back to those early days of cooking, I remember dishes I used to make that I've since dropped from my repertoire like Julia Child's Crepes. What are the recipes that used to be in your repertoire that now feel nostalgic?

Molly:

Oh, this is great.

Matthew:

This is a great question.

Molly:

You know, it's hard for me to separate my answer from listener Caitlin's question because she mentioned Julia Child's Crepes and immediately what I thought of was Julia Child souffle recipe from, is it the way to cook? Yeah. The way to cook.

Matthew:

That sounds right.

Molly:

I remember when I was in my early 20's living in the apartment I lived in, when I first moved to Seattle to go to grad school, I remember deciding I was going to teach myself how to make souffle and used Julia Child's recipe for cheese souffle and I was so delighted by how easy it was once you kind of got the technique down that for a while, it seemed like a kind of normal thing to make souffle.

Matthew:

Sounds really good.

Molly:

I mean, it sounds precious as all hell, but it really is not that difficult. And for a while I think I would have said it was in my repertoire. It is not anymore and then the other thing again, a French thing being Ratatouille, which I grew up with my parents making it a lot in the summertime and we all loved it. And so when I was first getting out on my own, developing my own repertoire Ratatouille was right in there and I haven't made it in a long time. My kid doesn't really like eggplant or peppers, my spouse doesn't really like any of the vegetables that are in there.

Matthew:

It's because you didn't like the movie?

Molly:

Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, the movie just ruined Ratatouille for me.

Matthew:

Okay, so I also thought of two things. One is California casserole, which we've talked about on the show before which was a Burton family recipe, so Wassail family, It's something that I still like, we made it like a year or two ago like it's a casserole made with like some kind of ground meat optionally and then like minute rice, green peppers and onions, canned tomatoes, and cheddar cheese.

Matthew:

So like a real casserole, casserole. And it's good but like when I made it, like I felt like this just kind of doesn't feel like the way I eat anymore. And like, there's no good reason for that, there's nothing wrong with the dish obviously, there's something wrong with me, Molly?

Molly:

Yeah, that is the situation that I think just well...

Matthew:

Can we solve that right now?

Molly:

Okay, Matthew, wait, what's the other thing?

Matthew:

The other thing is this recipe that I was really obsessed with like right when I was like starting to become a food person, I guess, it was published in the New York Times and it was called sweet and spicy pepper stew and the chef was Everhard Mueller who, I don't remember, it was maybe from Lutez, something like, I guess Lutez was always Andre Soltner, I don't know.

Matthew:

Anyway, but it was at a time when I knew like who were the French chefs cooking at French restaurants in New York? It's like a Peperonata kind of you take like three different kinds of peppers and you cook, you sweat them with some onion shallots probably and just like cook it down and then like eat it like with like crusty bread or something. And I've made this a bunch of times. And for a while it was like the thing that I wanted when I was sick and like, I haven't made it in at least 10 years. And I don't know, maybe I should.

Molly:

Wow, it's so interesting, it sounds so unappealing to me. Sweet and spicy pepper stew.

Matthew:

Yeah, it is a kind of an odd ball. I really liked it though.

Molly:

Huh? Okay. Well Matthew, if you have recipes for any of these things that we can link to.

Matthew:

Oh, I do.

Molly:

I would love to see the ingredient list, at least for sweet and spicy pepper stew, I'm not committing to making it though.

Matthew:

Okay. Maybe like when we can get together again, we'll do a sweet and spicy pepper stew episode.

Molly:

Oh great, I can't wait.

Matthew:

You can make Ratatouille and I'll make sweet and spicy pepper stew and we'll just eat a lot of Mediterranean style vegetables.

Molly:

Have we done a bell pepper episode? Surely we have.

Matthew:

It looks like we haven't.

Molly:

We're going to be doing that really soon.

Matthew:

Okay, great. All right.

Molly:

Okay. God, this is going to be so fun, I can't wait.

Matthew:

Next segment, quilting.

Molly:

All right, guys, I finished my quilt, I finished my quilt and I've been sleeping under it-

Matthew:

Wow.

Molly:

... for the past few nights and I've been sleeping so well but I do miss having like, I love to hand quilting and watching TV at night.

Matthew:

I mean, you can make another quilt, right?

Molly:

No, I can't, but I don't really want to work that hard.

Matthew:

That's completely understandable.

Molly:

You know what, I need like a four year hiatus between quilt projects, that's my rhythm.

Matthew:

That makes sense, I can understand that. We did get an urgent email, this is like a hybrid spilled mail quilting segment from listener Paula who wanted to let you know not to wash the quilt in the washing machine. I don't know what gave listener Paula the idea that you were going to do that, maybe something you said on a recent episode.

Molly:

No, I think I told you Matthew and clearly you don't remember, I told you that I forgot to wash the backing fabric before I started sewing it. So anyway, listener Paula, I am definitely going to have to wash my quilt, I have a pet named Alice. who's so cute.

Matthew:

A head of undetermined genus.

Molly:

I'm looking at her right now, she's sleeping. Oh God, she's so cute. Anyway, but she gets up on the bed like the quilt is definitely going to have to be washed, but I will wash it in cold water and I will hang dry it.

Matthew:

Yeah, you will.

Molly:

We'll see, whatever will be, will be, there's a song about it. So we'll see.

Matthew:

But I mean, if something goes wrong, you're going to have to start a new quilt like today.

Molly:

No, I'll start a new quilt in four years to be honest.

Matthew:

I'm going to have to go four years without a quilt.

Molly:

Matthew, do you have a cute animal?

Matthew:

Do I ever?

Matthew:

This week's cute animal is the giant river otter of South America, that is also the name of the YouTube video that we're going to link to. It is the longest member of the Wassail family.

Molly:

Oh my God, I think while you're talking, I clicked on the YouTube video and I haven't been [inaudible 00:45:36] anything you say.

Matthew:

Because you're loving these giant river otters.

Molly:

Oh my God. No, I'm right here, I can hear you now. I finally realized that I should mute the YouTube video, not the computer.

Matthew:

Yeah, no. Just imagine that I'm one of the otters and I'm talking.

Molly:

Okay. So anyway, go for it.

Matthew:

Again, they are the longest member of the Wassail family, I know you and a lot of our listeners have been wondering for a while, which is the longest member of the Wassail family and now you know it's the giant river otter.

Molly:

Matthew, this thing is terrifying, this is not a cute animal.

Matthew:

I disagree.

Molly:

This thing looks like a swamp monster, it's terrifying. Did you see at, like, I'll tell you when to look at this thing and it is going to-

Matthew:

Okay, tell me when to look, I'm covering my eyes until then.

Molly:

No. Look right around 40 seconds.

Matthew:

I don't have the video pulled up, hang on.

Molly:

Pull up the video and look at it right around 46 seconds, this stuff is going to haunt your nightmares.

Matthew:

Okay. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. Before that, so I don't have the agenda pulled up, so I just went to YouTube and started typing giant river Otter of, and YouTube recommended giant river otter of death or a giant river otter of the day.

Molly:

Oh my God. This is great. This is great, okay.

Matthew:

Oh, so adorable.

Molly:

Matthew-

Matthew:

Oh I love it.

Molly:

Oh my God. It's terrifying. I'm very frightened of this animal.

Matthew:

This is interesting, okay.

Molly:

How big is it?

Matthew:

We need to get listeners weighing in on this because I think this thing is adorable.

Molly:

Oh my God. It looks like at Loch Ness, it's going to eat your face off. Oh my God. It's terrifying. Matthew, how big is this?

Matthew:

Pretty big. And the thing is that most otters are solitary animals but these things travel in packs, they're social. So you're not going to meet just one giant river otter, you're going to meet the whole family.

Molly:

I'm never going to South America. Oh my God.

Matthew:

I think you're also now going to be afraid of clicking on my next cute animal link.

Molly:

Oh my God. Matthew, how can you think this is cute? This thing absolutely looks like it's hungry for face.

Matthew:

Well, then you're going to be pleased to hear Molly that they're endangered due to poaching and habitat distraction.

Molly:

Oh no, I'm not that evil. They're evil.

Matthew:

All right. So listeners, we need to hear from you on this one, is this a cute animal or not the giant river otter? Because we have a wildly diverging opinions.

Molly:

Oh God. I mean, I love otters but these guys... Oh my God. They're really ill like

Matthew:

I do. I agree that like, if I were like sailing down the river and one of these heads popped up and started and started making it's like squeaky otter noise at me, I would have flashbacks to the movie Anaconda and think like, I don't know what that thing is, but it's for sure going to eat my face. But thi is from a safe distance, like I don't want to meet a tiger up close either.

Molly:

That's fair. Okay. Matthew, I can tell you that they get up to 3.7 feet long. So, I guess it's not so giant, but you got to look at their faces, man. They are thinking about what part of your body they're going to ingest first.

Matthew:

Yeah. But again, like the same is true of a lion and lions are majestic.

Molly:

But look at the North American river otter. Now, talk about a sweet Booper-

Matthew:

But these are like those only more so.

Molly:

What about a sea otter? Oh my God. Matthew why haven't we go sea otters yet?

Matthew:

Everybody knows sea otters and North American river otters.

Molly:

No, but nobody can get enough of sea otters, I mean.

Matthew:

Yeah, but that's the thing, people don't need to hear about sea otters from us but the North American river, the South American river otter-

Molly:

The giant river otter.

Matthew:

The giant river otter need some love.

Molly:

You're right. It definitely does. Okay, fine.

Matthew:

Okay, yeah. So if you want to get in touch with us with some Spilled Milk or to let us know whether a giant river otter is cute or not, that's contact at spilledmilkpodcast.com or visit the Subreddit, you know where to find it.

Molly:

Okay.

Matthew:

And finally now, but wow.

Molly:

Now but wow. It's our new favorite fragrant segments.

Matthew:

Sorry, most fragrant segments where we flagrantly recommend a thing that we're into this week.

Molly:

Yeah Matthew, what are you into this week?

Matthew:

Okay, I'm actually going to change mine at the last minute, I'm going to postpone this one that I wrote on the agenda until next week, because [inaudible 00:50:15] show Lori just recommended a book to me that I just started reading like the first two pages today and it's called a full love story by Loan Le and it grabbed me right off the top because the first line of this book which is it's a young adult romance, the first line is, "Hoisin sauce is not paint."

Molly:

That is perfect.

Matthew:

This book, like I know this book is going to be great, I can't wait to read the rest of it like I can't wait to stop talking to you so I can go back to reading this book. It's called The Full Love Story by [inaudible 00:50:46] books are sold.

Molly:

Fantastic. When you said that you were changing your recommendation at the last minute and that it was a book, I was afraid you were going to name the book that I'm going to talk about this week.

Matthew:

That would be so charming of us.

Molly:

It would be, it'd be so cute. I recently finished reading Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong, have I talked to you about this book?

Matthew:

I don't know this book.

Molly:

Oh my God. This is a fantastic book. It came out last year in 2020 Cathy Park Hong teaches at Red [inaudible 00:51:14], I think that prior to this book, she had published just poetry collections before, but this is a collection of essays, it's sort of memoir meets cultural criticism. And what is so incredible about this book? Actually, let me go back and tell you what the subtitle is because I think that it will eliminate things. So the book is called Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning. It starts out deceptively light-hearted and sort of playfully cutting.

Molly:

But before you know it, you are deep in this brutal and incredibly incisive, like dissection of race in America and it's incredible. I can't even say how artful this book is, I think everybody should have to read this book.

Matthew:

I just put a hold on it at the library while you were talking.

Molly:

Awesome. Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong, so far best book I've read in 2021.

Matthew:

Okay, I'm really excited.

Molly:

Possibly best book in the last couple of years.

Matthew:

Okay. That was now but wow and that brings us to the end of the show.

Molly:

Ah, wow.

Matthew:

It's been a long journey down the river.

Molly:

Oh my God.

Matthew:

And we survived several face eating otter attacks.

Molly:

And we brought home some fish sauce.

Matthew:

And we brought home some fish sauce from the river.

Molly:

Yeah.

Matthew:

Our producer is Abby Cerquitella, you can find us on Reddit, reddit.com/r/everythingspilledmilk, where you can talk to other listeners about the show. What else do we tell people at the end of the show? I just started doing this show this week, so I'm new to this.

Molly:

We already told them about the Reddit, the Subreddit, the all the Reddits and I think that that's about it.

Matthew:

I mean, Molly joined the Reddit.

Molly:

I did.

Matthew:

The username, I think-

Molly:

Candyfiend69420.

Matthew:

Was available. And immediately somewhat fuzzy like, wait, is that really Molly? It really is.

Molly:

Wait. They did?

Matthew:

Yeah.

Molly:

Oh, I didn't even see that. No, it's really me, it's really me. But the thing is, is I can't handle like one more thing to be responsible for.

Matthew:

I understand.

Molly:

So Subreddit people, I don't know, is there a way for me to find out if somebody tags me or messages me or something?

Matthew:

Probably, we'll figure this out.

Molly:

We'll figure it out, whatever, Reddit, go read it.

Matthew:

And until next time, thank you for listening to Spilled Milk. If you put us in a barrel and pour salt on us, we'll emerge in two years mushier but with a new quilt.

Molly:

Oh God, it's perfect. I'm Molly Wizenberg.

Matthew:

And I'm Matthew Amster-Burton.

Matthew:

Question, is it getting hot in here or is it just me?