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Modern garum is Nước Chấm ("Cham sauce") in Vietnam, Nam Pla ("fish sauce") in Thailand. Even in China it gets used a lot in the southeast cuisines (Guangdong,

Modern garum is Nước Chấm ("Cham sauce") in Vietnam, Nam Pla ("fish sauce") in Thailand. Even in China it gets used a lot in the southeast cuisines (Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Fujian). I'm not sure we can confidently assert that it was a salt replacement in all cases, because anyone living on the ocean has an infinite supply of salt which is impossible not to discover, nor can one claim it was not an original development in the region, because fermenting fish is self-advertising. However, I think the extent to which Romans used garum as a trade good combined with other Roman findings is sufficient attestation that a Roman version may have arrived at least once as a further link within trade networks via Indian shores. Local historiography is extremely sketchy in this period, relying on isolated Chinese references. Whatever happened, local culinary traditions would have already been well established by (1) local geography; (2) Austronesian peoples; (3) prior links from shorter distance coastal trading; and (4) Indian states' long distance voyaging. To assert they had no supply of salt or had never discovered fermented fish would be difficult at best.

teleforce 2y ago
I am not saying they don't have salt but it's a kind of popular salt replacement. For Asian cooking soy sauce is used in most of Asian cooking and and nowadays for example they are three type of popular soy sauces, 1) original 2) sweet and 3) salty, but even the original and the sweet one is very much salty. If you cook with soy sauces you need to adjust for the saltiness and do not put much salt, and some cases with salty soy sauce you don't add salt at all since it's already salty enough. I think this what probably happened, in the old days there's no Monosodium glutamate (MSG) for artificial umami flavour and they probably use garum as a kind of convenient hybrid salt and umami flavour (MSG) replacement. Most of the Asian restaurants now apparently are using MSG for better taste but personally I have found it bad for after taste with my nose feel itchy and dry soon afterwards.

teleforce 2y ago

I am not saying they don't have salt but it's a kind of popular salt replacement. For Asian cooking soy sauce is used in most of Asian cooking and and nowadays for example they are three type of popular soy sauces, 1) original 2) sweet and 3) salty, but even the original and the sweet one is very much salty. If you cook with soy sauces you need to adjust for the saltiness and do not put much salt, and some cases with salty soy sauce you don't add salt at all since it's already salty enough. I think this what probably happened, in the old days there's no Monosodium glutamate (MSG) for artificial umami flavour and they probably use garum as a kind of convenient hybrid salt and umami flavour (MSG) replacement. Most of the Asian restaurants now apparently are using MSG for better taste but personally I have found it bad for after taste with my nose feel itchy and dry soon afterwards.