Core Ingredients: Or How Three Stinky Seafood Sauces Make Thai Food Yummy

I have no idea how to answer the above question. Thai food is definitely more than the sum of its parts, and this is particularly true in the case of three of its most common condiments: fish sauce (nam pla), shrimp paste (kapi), and oyster sauce (nam monhoy). (Actually, the latter doesn't deserve to be called stinky -- it's quite tasty and aromatic on its own.)

Having watched Pim cook with at least one of these condiments nearly every meal, I was a curious what goes into the making of each, so I consulted the Wikipedia oracle.

Fish Sauce
Wikipedia informs me that fish sauce is the result of taking small fish, usually anchovies, and very salty water and letting the mixture ferment in clay pots in the hot sun for many months. (Lesser brands cheat the process by boiling the mixture and/or adding chemical catalysts.)

Pim's favorite brand (because its her mother's) is simply called Squid.

You can get a hold of fish sauce, at least the non-premium brands, almost anywhere. Pim was even able to find it in my very uncosmopolitan hometown of Logan, Utah.

Given its preparation, you'd expect it to be at least as foul smelling as shrimp paste, but somehow fermentation magically mellows its flavor, and cooking with it mellows it even further. It harmonizes nicely with symphony of flavors inside a curry or soup.

Even without cooking, it's tasty combined with diced chillies to make a concoction called prik nampla (chilli fish sauce), an excellent accompaniment to fried rice.

An interesting factoid (also supplied by Wikipedia): ancient Romans also used fish sauce, prepared in an almost identical way.

Shrimp Paste
This is one of the most malodorous substances known to man. Pim tortures me with it by thrusting opened cans of it under my nose while I'm doing the dishes. (Somehow she also manages to eat this stuff directly out of the can like it's peanut butter.)

Wikipedia say it's made by drying piles of shrimp in the hot sun until they ferment into a pulp. Depending on the size of shrimp used, the pulp is then ground one or more times to improve consistency. Cooking somehow tempers the horrific odor, and, like fish sauce, it manages to subtlety enhance the flavor of the given dish (usually a curry).

Oyster Sauce
Unlike shrimp paste, oyster sauce is quite tasty its own right, not at all fishy considering its ingredients, and resembling A1 steak sauce or Worstechestershire sauce in flavor. According to Wikipedia, it's made by boiling oysters into a white broth, then caramelizing this broth. Industry has naturally found many shortcuts to this process, and the ratio of oysters to chemicals varies with price.

Oyster sauce acts a tenderizer, and it's a common Thai practice to marinate meats in it prior to cooking.