SPAIN / FOOD CULTURE & HISTORY
The Oldest Condiment in the World: Garum, Patis, and the Fish Sauce That Connected Civilisations
There is a liquid so ancient that archaeologists have found its residue in amphoras buried beneath the ruins of Pompeii, so potent that the Roman Senate passed laws prohibiting its production within city limits on account of the smell, and so precisely analogous to the fish sauces of Southeast Asia that food historians still debate whether the two traditions share a common ancestor or whether fermented fish and salt simply lead every culture that encounters them to the same inevitable, transformative conclusion. That liquid is garum. And it is, in a very real sense, the condiment that shaped the ancient world — and that never entirely went away.
To trace the history of garum is to trace the history of umami itself: the discovery, made independently on multiple continents across several millennia, that fermenting fish with salt does not merely preserve it but transfigures it — collapsing muscle and viscera into a concentrated amber liquid of extraordinary depth, saltiness without harshness, and a savoury persistence that elevates everything it touches. The Romans called it the finest of their seasonings. A bottle of the best garum sociorum — the premium grade produced in Cartagena on the southern Spanish coast — cost the equivalent of two thousand loaves of bread. It was, in all practical senses, the olive oil of its era: present in nearly every kitchen, present in nearly every recipe, and traded across every corner of the known world.
What Garum Was
The available evidence suggests that garum was typically made by crushing the innards of fatty, pelagic fish — particularly anchovies, but also sprats, sardines, mackerel, or tuna — and fermenting them in brine. Slaves and laborers made the aromatic fish sauce by chopping up whole fish, including their guts, and tossing them into large clay pots with salt. The concoctions were then left to ferment for at least nine months under the hot Mediterranean sun, while halophilic, salt-loving bacteria from the fish's guts helped break down the flesh.
The process was not subtle. The production of garum created such unpleasant smells that factories were generally relegated to the outskirts of cities. And yet the finished product was something else entirely. Ancient garum had a full-bodied and rich umami flavour, making it a savory and complex ingredient. The taste was described as strong and lingering. The finished product was bold yet aromatic — high-quality garum was even sometimes positively compared to perfume.
When the fermentation stage was finished, the malodorous mixture was strained. The resulting thick, amber liquid was the prized sauce garum, while the paste left behind was called allec. Pliny stated that this paste was similar to bagoong — the fermented fish paste of the Philippines — itself a byproduct of fish sauce production. The parallel is not coincidental. It is the same biochemical process, the same logic of salt and enzyme and time, arriving at the same two products: liquid and paste, the one poured into food, the other spread upon it.
By the time of Augustus, a type of fish sauce made in Cartagena and Cadiz, Spain, called garum sociorum, was considered the highest quality. Garum sociorum could be sold for 1,000 sesterces for 12 pints — the equivalent of 2,000 loaves of bread. The Iberian Peninsula, with its long Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines and abundant tuna and mackerel, was the world's premium fish sauce producer — a distinction that echoes forward in time to Spain's position today as one of the world's great seafood-curing nations.
The Fall and the Survival
During the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, high taxes on salt were introduced, making garum production economically unsustainable for many producers. As the Empire fell and chaos spread, coastal cities could not count on the government for protection. Fermented fish sauce essentially went extinct across the West.
But not entirely. In Cetara, a small fishing village on the Amalfi Coast in Campania, a tradition survived — or was rediscovered. The recipe for what would become colatura di alici was recovered by a group of medieval monks, who would salt anchovies in wooden barrels every August, allowing the fish sauce to drip away through the cracks of the barrels over the course of the process. Today, the best quality colatura di alici comes from Cetara, where anchovies are placed in small chestnut barrels, layered with Sicilian sea salt from Trapani. The lid of the barrel is weighted down by rocks. The anchovies age for about three years. Then a hole is poked in the bottom of the barrel and the anchovy juice is drained, drop by drop.
When it comes to flavour, colatura is incredibly complex and deep. The lighter versions have a subtle taste of the sea, but stronger sauces develop all sorts of complex flavours. Good colatura has a pungent, savoury fish flavour but no overpowering saltiness, and develops umami and sweet notes too, almost like a balsamic vinegar. You need forty kilograms of anchovies to make five litres of it. It remains one of the most labour-intensive and genuinely irreplaceable condiments in the Italian kitchen.
The Question of Parallel Origins
In 2010, a team of researchers analysed samples of garum taken from containers preserved at Pompeii. They found that Roman fish sauce from the 1st century CE had an almost identical taste profile to those produced today in Southeast Asia. The reality is: we don't know whether garum and nuoc mam are relatives, or twins that were separated at birth.
Some historians have argued that fish sauce, common throughout Southeast Asia today, was introduced to the continental subregion via the Silk Road. Others, including food historian Mark Kurlansky, argue that the two fermented traditions developed independently in East and West — "an idea that occurred independently in the East and the West," as he wrote, "like the domesticated pig." The biochemical logic is identical: fish plus salt plus time plus heat equals glutamate-rich liquid, regardless of whether the cook is Roman, Vietnamese, or Filipino. The convergence may simply be the result of universal human ingenuity applied to the same raw material.
What is not in dispute is the antiquity of both traditions. The earliest recorded production was between the 4th and 3rd century BCE by the Ancient Greeks, who fermented scraps of fish called garos. In Cambodia, fish sauce is believed to date back to the pre-Angkorean era. Both lineages are old enough that the question of which came first is perhaps less interesting than the question of what they share — and where they diverge.
The Family of Fish Sauces: A World Map
The most illuminating way to understand fish sauce is not to treat it as a single thing but as a family of preparations, each shaped by the fish available, the climate, the salt-to-fish ratio, the fermentation vessel, and the culinary traditions of the culture that produced it. The differences are real and meaningful.
Vietnam — Nước Mắm is widely regarded as the benchmark of Southeast Asian fish sauce. Vietnamese fish sauce is usually lighter in flavour than the Thai version, with the highest quality sauce being transparent and lightly amber coloured, with a delicate smell. Fish sauce is graded, like olive oil, in levels of quality and price. The grades are determined by nitrogen content — a measure of glutamate density and therefore flavour intensity. The finest nước mắm from Phú Quốc island, made from a single species of anchovy caught in particularly clean waters, is used raw as a dipping sauce, its flavour too delicate for heat. Lower grades are for cooking. The stratification mirrors wine: there is table fish sauce and there is grand cru fish sauce, and the Vietnamese take both seriously.
Thailand — Nam Pla is the closest Thai equivalent and the most internationally recognised, partly because Thailand is the world's largest fish sauce exporter. Thai fish sauce is generally lighter in colour, saltier, and slightly more pungent than its Vietnamese counterpart. Traditionally, both freshwater and saltwater fish varieties were used, with fermentation lasting at least eight months at a ratio of three parts fish to two parts salt. Nearly every Thai meal is served with phrik nam pla as a condiment — a mixture of fish sauce, lime juice, and chopped bird's eye chillies. It is the salt shaker and the hot sauce combined, present on every table, adjusted to taste.
Laos — Nam Pa and Padaek represent the freshwater tradition. Landlocked Laos ferments river fish rather than sea fish, and the result is earthier, murkier, and more pungent than the coastal varieties. Padaek — the chunkier, partially fermented version — is closer to a paste than a sauce and is used as a base flavouring in the cuisine of Laos and the Isan region of northeastern Thailand. It is further from garum in character than any other variant: funkier, more assertive, irreplaceable in laap, the minced meat salad that is Laos's national dish.
Cambodia — Tuk Trey shares the mainland Southeast Asian tradition but has its own regional character, often produced in earthenware jars and fermented for twelve months or longer. Industrially it is produced by mixing anchovies with coarse salt and fermenting in large wooden vats, distilled five times over six to eight months before being sun-fermented for a final two to three months. The Cambodian tradition of prahok — a fermented fish paste of great intensity — runs parallel to the liquid sauce and is, like the Roman allec and the Filipino bagoong, the solid byproduct of the same essential process.
Burma/Myanmar — Ngan Bya Yay is lighter and less intensely fermented than many of its neighbours, often a byproduct of hmyin ngapi, the Burmese fish paste made from small fish, anchovies, krill, and shrimp. It appears in mohinga, Myanmar's beloved national breakfast — a fish-based broth with rice noodles, lemongrass, and ginger — in a supporting role that demonstrates a consistent principle across all these traditions: fish sauce rarely announces itself in a dish. It dissolves into the background, amplifying the other flavours, making the whole more savoury, more rounded, more itself.
Patis: The Filipino Fish Sauce and Its Particular Character
The Philippine fish sauce is known as patis. It is one of the most important ingredients in Filipino cuisine. Patis is a by-product of bagoong production — which includes bagoong isda (fermented fish) and bagoong alamang (fermented krill). Unlike other fish sauce variants, the fermented solids are not discarded but are sold as separate products. The patis is skimmed from the upper layers of fermenting bagoong and is not pressed.
This production method — skimming rather than pressing — is one of the key distinctions between patis and its Southeast Asian neighbours. Because it rises naturally to the surface of the fermenting mass and is collected passively, patis typically takes longer to produce and has a heavier, more mineral-forward flavour. Filipino fish sauce tends to be lighter in colour and has a slightly milder taste compared to Thai and Vietnamese versions. It is commonly paired with calamansi juice for a tangy dipping sauce.
The relationship between patis and Spain's colonial legacy is indirect but real. Patis itself predates Spanish contact — the Philippines had a sophisticated fermentation culture long before the galleons arrived. But it was the Spanish who gave Filipino cooking its braising tradition, its sofrito base, its use of vinegar as a preservative, and its culture of slow-cooked, deeply savoured food — all frameworks within which patis functioned as the foundational seasoning. When a Filipino cook makes adobo — pork or chicken braised in vinegar, garlic, bay leaf, and black pepper — patis is often added to deepen the braise and balance the acid. When arroz caldo simmers — the congee-like rice porridge that carries the memory of both Spanish cooking and Chinese influence — it is patis that provides the mineral backbone of the broth. The sauce is pre-colonial; the dishes it seasons are colonial hybrids. It is, in this way, a perfect emblem of Filipino food culture itself.
What Distinguishes Patis from the Others
The practical differences between these sauces matter enormously in the kitchen, and understanding them helps explain why they are not interchangeable.
Vietnamese nước mắm at its finest is the most delicate of the family — clean, complex, suited to raw applications where its nuance can be perceived. Thai nam pla is saltier and more aggressive, built for heat and the bold flavours of a wok. Laotian nam pa is earthier from the freshwater fish base, with a murkiness that matches the robust herbal flavours of that cuisine. Burmese ngan bya yay is the most restrained, a background note in a cuisine of many complex flavours. Cambodian tuk trey sits between Vietnam and Thailand in character.
Patis is distinctively mineral and savoury with a slightly less pungent nose than Thai or Vietnamese versions. Its connection to bagoong — the paste from which it is skimmed — means it carries something of the fermented paste's character: richer, more complex, slightly thicker in flavour if not in texture. Most significantly, patis is nearly always cooked prior to consumption, even when used as an accent to salads or other raw dishes. This is unusual. The Vietnamese and Thai traditions embrace raw application at the table; patis is fundamentally a cooking sauce first, a condiment second. That distinction shapes the entire Filipino culinary philosophy around it.
And then there is the bagoong connection itself — the existence of both the liquid and the paste as valued, co-equal products from the same fermentation — which mirrors the Roman tradition of garum and allec so precisely that it reads less like coincidence and more like universal wisdom.
The Modern Revival: From Noma's Laboratory to Your Pasta
For most of the twentieth century, garum and its Italian descendant colatura di alici were barely known outside the coastal villages where they were produced. Then came fermentation, the word that defined avant-garde cooking in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, and with it a renewed, scientifically grounded fascination with everything ancient, everything funky, and everything that produces glutamate.
After two decades of research and experimentation, Noma opened its fermentation lab to the public in 2021, launching a line of products including a highly umami-rich garum. A modern interpretation of the Roman condiment, Noma's garum is vegan, made from mushrooms fermented for six to eight weeks before bottling. It sold out almost immediately, prompting others to follow suit — chef Mattia Baroni introduced his re.Garum line, crafted from fish, meat, cheese, and vegetable scraps. Today, various versions of "garum" appear on menus around the world, and restaurants bearing the name have opened in Modena, Naples, Minori, Mexico City, France, and London.
With waste reduction and sustainability more important than ever, chefs have found ways of making garum without having to buy in anchovies — or even any fish at all. Chefs and fermenting-obsessives have attempted to make koji-triggered garums out of everything from bee pollen to Guinness, all of which are subtly distinct in flavour but have the same whack of umami that the seasoning is known for.
At its most innovative, chefs have adapted garum to incorporate chicken, lamb, and bone marrow. At Noma, a dish features rose shrimp garum: shrimps, water, and salt blended with fresh roses and naturally fermented by the enzymes inside the shrimps — a whack of umami-rich funk with a floral edge. The principle is unchanged from the Roman cetariae: ferment protein with salt, wait, and collect the liquid intelligence that results.
Dishes That Showcase Fish Sauce in the Modern Era
Italian: Spaghetti alla Colatura di Alici One common way this fish sauce has been used is in a dish called spaghetti alla colatura di alici, which includes very small amounts of the fish sauce with spaghetti, garlic, and olive oil. The genius of the preparation is its invisibility: the colatura is never the flavour you taste, but it is entirely responsible for why all the other flavours taste more intensely like themselves. Add parsley, a squeeze of lemon, and breadcrumbs toasted in olive oil, and you have one of the purest expressions of Italian coastal cooking available. Many Italian chefs are also using colatura in risottos, braises, and pizza, anywhere they previously would have used salt.
Spanish: Anchovies in Everything Spain's anchovy tradition — from the salt-cured Cantabrian anchovies of Santoña to the vinegar-marinated boquerones of Andalusia — is, at its root, the same impulse as garum: the recognition that fermented, salt-preserved oily fish produces flavours of extraordinary depth. Modern Spanish chefs use anchovy paste and the liquid from anchovy tins as a garum-adjacent seasoning in braised meats, roasted vegetables, and vinaigrettes. At the highest level, a handful of Spanish chefs have begun producing actual garum in the Andalusian tradition, working from the archaeological evidence recovered from the Roman cetariae at Baelo Claudia in Cádiz.
Vietnamese: Nuoc Cham and Beyond Nước chấm — the dipping sauce made from nước mắm, lime juice, sugar, garlic, and chilli — is arguably the most elegant expression of fish sauce in any cuisine: the fermented depth of the sauce balanced against citrus acid and gentle heat, producing a condiment so perfectly calibrated that it makes grilled meats, fresh spring rolls, and rice paper parcels taste simultaneously bright and profound. Top-grade nước mắm is also increasingly used raw as a finishing sauce in French-Vietnamese cuisine, a few drops drizzled over a scallop or a slice of raw fish in the way a chef might use the finest olive oil.
Filipino: Sinigang, Adobo, and the Patis-Calamansi Dip Sinigang — the sour tamarind soup that is one of the great dishes of Filipino cuisine — uses patis as its fundamental savoury base, balanced against tamarind's acid and a range of vegetables and proteins. The patis and calamansi dipping sauce served alongside fried fish and grilled meats is a near-perfect distillation of Filipino flavour philosophy: savoury, sour, bright, and clean. In modern Filipino fine dining, chefs have begun using aged patis — the premium-grade sauce from longer fermentation — as a finishing condiment in the way fine dining kitchens elsewhere use colatura or nước mắm.
Global Modern: The Umami Secret Ingredient Chefs increasingly use fish sauce in Western dishes — bolognese, Caesar salad dressing, Bloody Marys, and glazes for roasted meats — to add a background layer of savoury complexity without any identifiable fish flavour. The British Worcestershire sauce, little known to those who reach for it instinctively, is itself a fish sauce: fermented anchovies are its foundational ingredient, a fact that has not changed since its invention in the 1830s. The Caesar salad dressing owes its savoury depth to anchovy paste — another garum descendant. The bolognese that benefits from a few drops of fish sauce added to the soffritto is, in that moment, reproducing a technique documented in the Roman cookbook Apicius two thousand years ago: using fermented fish liquid to deepen a meat preparation.
The Thread That Runs Through Everything
What garum, colatura di alici, patis, nước mắm, nam pla, and all their cousins share is not merely a production method but a philosophy: that the most direct route to great flavour is not complexity of technique but depth of fermentation — that time and salt and the biochemistry of living enzymes can transform the most humble raw material into something of extraordinary culinary power.
The Phoenician fish-salters of Cádiz understood it. The medieval monks of Cetara who salted their anchovies in chestnut barrels understood it. The Filipino fishermen of Ilocos Norte who pack their bagoong into burnay jars and wait understood it. The Vietnamese producers of Phú Quốc who grade their sauce like olive oil and take equal pride in its provenance understood it. And René Redzepi, fermenting rose shrimp in a Copenhagen laboratory, understands it too.
The condiment is ancient. The wisdom is universal. The flavour is, in every version, unmistakable.