My favorite moment of Master Chef this season, was when they made them pick out their favorite ingredients and then made them swap with each other. So Monte, the Puerto Rican lady, ended up with Christine’s, the Asian lady’s, Vietnamese Fish Sauce.
It was funny as hell watching Monte tasting the fish sauce and saying, “Fish sauce?, What the hell is fish sauce? And why does it taste like death?”
Personally, I love the Vietnamese fish sauce that they use for dipping spring rolls in, but I do admit it’s smells like hell and thinking about how it’s made makes it even worse.
But it seems that these types of fermented fish sauces are actually pretty common. For instance, I just recently learned that Worcestershire sauce is also a fermented fish sauce.