For those who didn't know, the staple sauce throughout the Roman Empire of old was called garum.
Garum is a fermented fish sauce that was used ... in the cuisines of Phoenicia, ancient Greece, Rome, Carthage, and later Byzantium ... The taste of garum is thought to have been comparable to that of today's Asian fish sauces.
Like modern fermented fish sauce and soy sauce, garum was a rich source of umami flavoring due to the presence of glutamates.
There's more at the link.
Believe it or not, after about 2,000 years or thereabouts, you can still buy authentic garum today. Go check out what's available at the link. If you prefer something slightly less fishy, British Worcestershire sauce is basically a modern version of garum. It was developed "by accident", with a nasty unpalatable concoction left forgotten in a basement for years. When rediscovered, it had matured into what we know today. Read all about it at the link.
So, fermented fish sauce has a long and celebrated history . . . but one can have too much of a good thing, as the residents of St. Mary's in Canada learned to their cost.
Over 100 tanks of rotten fish sauce are finally being removed from a small Canadian town after stinking up the neighborhood for decades.
The supply of what’s been described as “the worst rotted fish you ever smelled” was left abandoned in the quaint town of St. Mary’s after the Atlantic Seafood Sauce Company shuttered more than 20 years ago.
Over the next few months, workers will embark on a $1.2 million project to drain roughly 110 tanks, each holding 3,000 gallons of fermented fish sauce.
The stinky sauce will then be mixed with peat moss to absorb the liquid, according to St. Mary’s volunteer mayor, Steve Ryan.
Trucks equipped with giant hoses will then suck up the material and deliver it to a massive pit lined with high-density polyethylene, where the waste will be buried in topsoil.
The dilapidated factory full of ditched fish sauce has wafted an indescribable smell over the town of roughly 300 people in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The liquid kept fermenting as the plant kept turning to ruin, with a blown-off roof and a wall knocked out by a storm in January.
There's more at the link. Here's a video report on the process.
This is one time I'm truly, profoundly, deeply grateful that "scratch and sniff" technology hasn't made it to the pages of the Internet yet - or to the screens of our electronic devices!
Peter
11 comments:
Fertilizer?
I think that stink would be so powerful it would make any houses near that fertilizer uninhabitable for a season or two! I've smelt something similar in a fish sauce production facility in the Far East - and that was with relatively "fresh" fish being processed for the local equivalent of garum. I truly wanted a gas mask with its own oxygen cylinders, not just a filter system!
At the risk of sounding like a cultural dunce, may I please take a pass on the garum.- that made Rome great and the lutefisk that made the Vikings who they were. Can I stick to fair food like fried butter that is making America great...?
Ah yes, I love the smell of nước mắm in the morning.
I don't understand why they would line the pit they're burying the stuff in. Surely it's the kind of thing that doesn't have to be treated like chemical waste....
Until maybe the mid 70's, there was a fish rendering plant located along the center causeway to the island towns of Wildwood NJ. I can recall visiting Wildwood about '68-'70 in a buddy's '68 396 Chevelle. As he approached the plant, he punched the throttle and we went past it at 120mph. Even at that speed, it took TOO LONG to get out of the smelly environment!
With the addition of peat moss into the pit, later it will be good compost.
But, but, it develops more complex flavors as it ages! :-)
From personal experience: stay upwind of any potato chip manufacturing facility. I was about to look for the source of the nauseating sewage backup at a customer's nearby facility until they clued me in.
Thank you, no, I do not wish to try some balut.
Umami is a real thing. By itself, fish sauce smells like something died. But put just a spoonful into a pot of beef stew, and you'll have people licking their plates and wanting more.
Re scratch and sniff, I remember being told that some company had indeed developed a way to put scents in the air during movies to "enhance the mood" or some such. The problem was, at that time (the 70's, iirc) a lot of movies were set in cities and were crime drama. So a lot of the smells were going to be "moods" of back alleys and rundown industrial areas ... aka "bad." So it never caught on.
Lining the hole with plastic? It's frickin organic material, and it's not human waste or something! Gah. It's salty, yes, but... anyway. Harrumph. It's not frickin ethylene glycol.
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