Thai food is massively popular the world over and one of main ingredients in Thai food is fish sauce, it is for this reason that I have decided to enlighten the reader with a pertinent piece of information regarding the storage of fish sauce. Never store fish sauce in the fridge, it forms crystals and ruins the flavor.

"Wont it go off?" I hear you ask, well herein lies the answer to your question, though it may not necessarily put your mind at ease.

Sausages are said to be one food that you should never see being made, well fish sauce is probably the leader in that category. If you love your fish sauce and feel you may have difficulties eating it with that warning in mind, I suggest you flick over to our recipes section now and forget you ever saw this article. Surprisingly the most important aspect of fish sauce production is that the fish must be really fresh, straight off the boat that morning fresh.  The fish is then chopped into bight size pieces, mixed with enormous quantities of salt, guts scales and all before being poured into large vats left in the tropical sun for 9-12 months.The terms they use are fermentation or digestion however I think we all know its really left there to rot. 

For all intents and purposes this is about all to it, after that period of time the juice left in the bottom of the vat is decanted, filtered and bottled then put straight onto your food. Though there does seem to be a few derivations to the production process, some use pineapple as it has a tenderising enzyme that helps digest the fish flesh. Some remove the covers of the vats periodically to allow sunlight to help with the fermentation. While other layer, salt followed by fish followed by salt, how much difference these methods actually have is difficult to measure. 

Jeff Corwin of Extreme Cuisine did an episode on Thai Fish Sauce Production, though I have not been able to find the video on you tube someone managed to uncover or produce a copy of it, CLICK HERE, its worth the watch.

If that doesn't put you off fish sauce, this bloke will.

WARNING: the video below is not for the faint hearted, weak stomached or anyone about to start cooking or eating a Thai banquet.