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Ingredient

Fish Sauce

Condiments, Sauces and Fermented Flavorings

A pungent, salty liquid condiment made by fermenting fish, most often anchovies, with salt for months; foundational to the cuisines of Thailand, Vietnam and the wider Southeast Asian coast.

Facts
Disputed
Earliest Documented Use, From (Year)
from 300 BCE 1
Sourced to the subject's own accountThe earliest documented antecedent is a Chinese fermented fish-and-soybean sauce recorded about 2300 years ago; the Southeast Asian fish sauce tradition this entity describes has no precisely dated early record of its own, so this pins the ancestral practice rather than a confirmed date for the regional product.
Origin Region
Mainland Southeast Asia, especially Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, building on an earlier Chinese tradition of fermented fish-and-soybean sauces; Vietnam's Phan Thiet is often named as the birthplace of the Vietnamese style, but no single national origin is firmly settled among the Southeast Asian traditions. 1
Sourced to the subject's own accountFood scholars split East Asian condiment traditions along a bean-fish divide, Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia) on fermented fish and Northeast Asia on fermented beans; which Southeast Asian nation's fish-sauce tradition is oldest is not documented, so this names the region and the candidate traditions rather than picking one.
Classification
AllergenSourced to the subject's own account
Fish 1
Connections

Carries Allergen

Fish, Ingredients

Entity-backed identity for the allergen value this ingredient already carries as an enum fact, resolved to a ingredient entity by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The enum fact itself stays on the entity unchanged.

Expresses Tradition

Narezushi and Fermented Fish, Food Traditions

Used By

Burmese Cuisine, Cuisines
Source Larousse Gastronomique
Cambodian Cuisine, Cuisines
Source Larousse Gastronomique
Drunken noodles, Dishes
Source Drunken noodles (Wikipedia)
Filipino Cuisine, Cuisines
Source Fish Sauce (Wikipedia)
Massaman Curry, Dishes
Source Massaman Curry (Wikipedia)
Pad Thai, Dishes
Source The Oxford Companion to FoodAlan Davidson
Pho, Dishes

Fish sauce seasons the broth itself rather than serving only as a table condiment.

Source What Pho Can Teach Us About the History of Vietnam (National Geographic)Ryley Graham
Thai Cuisine, Cuisines
Source Fish Sauce (Wikipedia)
Tom Yum, Dishes
Source The Oxford Companion to FoodAlan Davidson
Vietnamese Cuisine, Cuisines
Source A Taste of Vietnam, from Hearty Sour Broths to Fragrantly Spiced Street Food (National Geographic)Thuy Diem Pham
In the Other Atlases
  • Also in Geography Atlas: Asia, originated there.
  • Also in Geography Atlas: Cambodia, originated there.
  • Also in Geography Atlas: Southeast Asia, originated there.
  • Also in Geography Atlas: Thailand, originated there.
  • Also in Geography Atlas: Vietnam, originated there.
Sources
1. Fish Sauce (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • History, Asia section
    Sauces that included fermented fish parts with other ingredients such as meat and soybean were recorded in China, 2300 years ago.
  • Wikipedia, description lead (allergen)
    A pungent, salty liquid condiment made by fermenting fish, most often anchovies
  • Used By: Filipino Cuisine, Regional variations, Southeast Asia, Philippines
    It is one of the most important ingredients in Filipino cuisine.
  • Used By: Thai Cuisine, Introduction, first paragraph
    It is used as a staple seasoning in East Asian cuisine and Southeast Asian cuisine, particularly Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
View the Source
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
Harold McGee, Scribner, 2004ch. on sauces, fermented fish sauces
The Oxford Companion to Food
Alan Davidson, Oxford University Press, 2014
  • Used By: Pad Thai
  • Used By: Tom Yum
A Taste of Vietnam, from Hearty Sour Broths to Fragrantly Spiced Street Food (National Geographic)
Thuy Diem Pham, National Geographic, 2023Used By: Vietnamese CuisineView the Source
What Pho Can Teach Us About the History of Vietnam (National Geographic)
Ryley Graham, National Geographic, 2025Used By: PhoView the Source
Larousse Gastronomique
Hamlyn, 2009
  • Used By: Burmese Cuisine, entry: Fish Sauce
  • Used By: Cambodian Cuisine, entry: Fish Sauce
Massaman Curry (Wikipedia)
WikipediaUsed By: Massaman Curry, Infobox food/dish main_ingredient fieldView the Source
Drunken noodles (Wikipedia)
Used By: Drunken noodles, Infobox food/dish main_ingredient fieldView the Source

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