Before Fish Sauce Became a Bottle
Before fish sauce found its way into a bottle, it was once a tiny fish in a river.
It was once the knowledge of people who knew how to live with the water.
It was once salt from a place where fresh, brackish, and salt water meet — carrying minerals, seasons, and the skill of salt makers.
It once sat inside a glass jar, passing through heat, rain, cold, days and nights.
And it was once three years of time that no one could hurry.
This book is not intended merely to document the knowledge of making fish sauce from small river fish in the Yom River basin of Sukhothai as a story from the past.
It comes from the feeling that some forms of knowledge should not be preserved only so that they can be remembered. They should also be given a chance to live again in the present.
A bottle of fish sauce may appear to be an ordinary thing in the kitchen. But look more closely and it reveals a web of relationships between river, fish, salt, seasons, time, knowledge, and the people who once knew how to live with all of them in remarkable detail.
We therefore see this book as a form of regenerative publishing — publishing that does more than preserve the past. It attempts to bring value, relationships, and possibilities for the continuation of this edible heritage back to life.
We believe good documentation should not merely keep something from disappearing.
It should allow that thing to be seen again, used again, and passed forward.
For the Fish-Sauce Jar in My Memory
When I was a child, I remember there being a fish-sauce jar upstairs in our house.
Only much later did I learn that...
it was a batch of fish sauce that had failed.
Our family had never successfully made fish sauce.
And perhaps that is why my image of fish sauce became a clear glass bottle with a white label printed in red — the bottle I had to fetch from a beer crate whenever Grandma was cooking.
When it was empty, we did not throw it away. We kept the bottle and exchanged the crate for another one.
Again and again.
Only when I grew older did I realise how incredibly cool this was.
Our family had been using “craft,” homemade, extraordinarily local fish sauce and supporting our own community for decades.
Not every place in the country has a seasoning ingredient it can call its own.
Sukhothai...
you are ridiculously beautiful.
Following Grandma's Story
Our journey began with a story told by my grandmother, Kru Pranee Saenkosik, a former teacher at Ban Kong Rat Uthit School.
She told us that when the flood season arrived, my great-grandmother would travel from Na Noi District in Nan Province by bus, change to a wooden songthaew in Phrae, and continue all the way down to Sukhothai.
The journey took almost two full days.
She came to make pla yang, grilled and preserved fish, to take back home and keep for cooking throughout the year until the next season came around.
“Because Sukhothai’s pla soi are the best fish.”
Grandma said.
She also told us that if we wanted to understand fish from the Yom River, we should go and meet the people of Ban Kong.
Then we would see how they eat.
How they live.
How their lives are shaped by the river.
And so our journey in search of the pla soi of the Yom River began...
Ban Kong
We drove along the Yom River in Kong Krailat District, Sukhothai.
Our destination was an area known as Koh Kong, beside Wat Ban Kong and only a short distance from Ban Kong Rat Uthit School — my grandmother’s former workplace, and part of my own childhood memory.
Ko Kong is an island-like settlement in the middle of the river.
In the past, the Kong Krailat District Office was located here. Later, it became a residential area where people continued to live closely with the river.
Almost every house had a rowing boat beneath it.
Around the seventh and eighth lunar months, when the water rose, floods could reach almost to the floorboards.
And life went on.
The people of Ko Kong had lived peacefully with this rhythm for generations.
We wandered around the neighbourhood until we spotted a stilt house on the opposite bank, right beside the river.
Fishing equipment covered the waterfront.
So we asked someone nearby how we could cross.
“Just paddle across. Is there a boat over there?”
a local told us.
“Oh, no paddle? Then you’ll have to drive around. Did you bring a car?”
As we talked, we learned that the man helping us was P’ Anek, who worked for the municipality.
He loved the old ways of life in Ban Kong and had been collecting traditional fishing tools at his own home so that younger generations could still see them.
We were lucky that day.
The water had risen under his house, so he had taken the day off to move his belongings.
That was how we happened to meet.
P’ Anek told us that the house we had been looking at belonged to Na Phit, a fisherman.
That explained all the fishing equipment around the place.
Then P’ Anek walked down to the riverbank and shouted across the water.
Na Phit shouted back.
“They’re students. They’re here doing research. Look after them for me!”
P’ Anek called across.
“Aoe!” came the reply from the other side.
“Thanks! If you need anything, tell me. Just don’t ask me for money...”
P’ Anek added.
Everyone laughed.
A Child of the River
“I’m a child of the river. My grandparents were too. I’ve lived and eaten from the Yom River since I was little... I’ve never thought of doing anything else.”
These were the words of Na Phit, a fisherman of the Yom River who has spent his entire life with the water that has sustained Sukhothai for generations.
His house is a traditional raised wooden house built for a life of flooding.
It sits perfectly on a bend in the river, giving an almost 180-degree view of the water.
We asked him:
“And in the dry season, when there isn’t much water, where do you fish?”
“The river usually doesn’t dry up,” Na Phit replied. “This year we even had two eighth lunar months, so there was plenty of water. But in a dry year, we go out into the fields, rice paddies, canals — wherever there is water.”
So much for the old saying:
“There are fish in the water and rice in the fields.”
Around here, perhaps it should be:
“There are fish in the water, and fish in the fields too.”
From childhood into adulthood, one question had always stayed with me.
People say the fish of Sukhothai are extraordinarily delicious.
But are they really “Sukhothai fish”?
Na Phit could not give us a definitive answer.
What he could tell us was this:
During the flood season, small river fish such as pla soi and pla thong — a small local fish, not the ornamental goldfish — swim upstream toward Sukhothai.
As floodwater spreads across the land and into fields and rice paddies, the fish follow.
There, in suitable environments, they reproduce.
When the water begins to recede, the parent fish and their young move back toward the river.
This is one reason fish remain abundant here.
Na Phit’s family has lived from fishing in this way since his grandfather’s generation.
From One Generation to the Next
As Na Phit has grown older, he has passed the main work of fishing on to P’ Tin, his son-in-law.
From generation to generation, the life of a child of the Yom River continues.
One image made us smile.
P’ Tin’s primary-school-aged son had already begun swimming in the river, rowing boats, and following his father out to fish.
The way of the Yom River will continue to flow through the people of Ban Kong for as long as knowledge and practice continue to be passed on.
One of the main fishing tools used here is called a sanun.
It resembles an enormous lift net or scoop made from bamboo, fixed to the front of a motorised boat.
Fishing this way is known as ngat sanun.
The season begins around Sart Thai, bat khao tom, and the end of Buddhist Lent.
People watch the river.
When its current begins to calm, the fishing season has arrived.
Na Phit also showed us how the pla soi he catches are processed.
One of Ban Kong’s best-known products is Na Nuan’s fish sauce.
And among Na Phit’s favourite things to eat — besides freshly caught pla khao — is rice-field crab preserved in pla soi fish sauce.
It can be made into salads, curries, or soups.
“Just Put Your Hand in the Water”
There is an old story passed down by people in Sukhothai:
Life here was once easy.
There was no need to struggle too hard for food.
All you had to do was trail your hand through the water and you could come up with enough fish to eat.
To be a child of the river in Sukhothai meant precisely this.
From birth to adulthood, life took place alongside water.
Children of the river were not afraid of floods.
Every child learned to swim.
And even those who were never formally taught often learned simply by following their parents out fishing.
Fishing in Sukhothai was, in a sense, open to everyone.
Whoever wished to fish, fished.
Every year, around the period of Tak Bat Devo after the end of Buddhist Lent, the water began to recede.
Then people came out to fish.
It was an ordinary and familiar scene.
The methods varied enormously.
Some fished individually; others used boats.
Each person and each area developed techniques suited to their own skills.
You might see someone standing near a sluice gate with an enormous scoop net, catching fish where the water rushed through.
Most of the catch there would be small fish, especially pla soi.
On a lucky day, someone might bring up a large pla kot khang, a fish locally nicknamed “Ai Kaeo.”
Then there were the larger tools.
One of the most spectacular was the giant yo, an enormous lift net lowered into the river.
The fisherman waited until fish entered the net, then raised it.
Some used muscle power.
Others used engines.
It depended on the means and resources of each person.
One fisherman we came to know was Na Iw, Ban Kong born and raised.
He told us proudly that he was a true child of the river.
Na Iw owned his own giant yo, positioned at a bend some distance from Ko Kong.
From our own experience, the best day for fresh fish seemed to be a day of fierce sunshine, when light glittered across the river.
Those were the days when villagers came out in their boats.
The catch was good.
And there was enough of it to justify the effort and expense.
An Afternoon Catch
Late that afternoon, at around three o’clock, Na Iw paddled a small boat from the floating platform where his giant yo was installed back toward shore.
He slowly lifted baskets filled with fish of every size and poured them onto a carefully prepared cloth.
Within moments, people began to arrive.
Some were part of his team, already arranged to help sort the fish.
Others were customers waiting for fish fresh from the Yom River.
“Tonight I’m making tom yum pla moo. Gonna be deliciooous!”
someone in the group called out.
“Pick me the biiig ones!”
a customer shouted.
Na Iw shouted back:
“If you want to pick them, come pick them yourself! I’ve been tireeed all day. Don’t stand there ordering this and that!”
They were not arguing.
This was simply the teasing language of people who knew one another — spoken in that unmistakable “Suuukhothai” way.
Watching them made us smile, because everyone involved was smiling too.
Pla moo khiao and pla rak kluai fetched the highest prices, around 300–400 baht per kilogram depending on season and scarcity.
But the fish caught in the greatest quantities were pla soi.
In a single day, a fisherman using large equipment like Na Iw could catch several hundred kilograms.
Sometimes as much as a tonne.
Na Iw told us:
“There used to be far more fish than this. What you see now is already very little.”
Very little?
To us, it looked like an enormous amount.
How abundant must Thailand once have been?
I could only wonder.
Then Na Iw called out: “Hey! Finished takin’ yer pictures yet? We gotta deliver these fish or they’ll all rot!”
That was that.
Camera down.
We hurried over to help Na Iw sort the pla soi and get them to the buyer.
Sanun Boats
People in Sukhothai fish in countless ways:
scooping, trapping, netting, casting nets, using fish traps, scoop nets, small lift nets, giant lift nets, and hooks.
But one method is a little more dramatic.
It uses what people call a sanun boat.
Around Kong Krailat, this method is particularly popular — and anyone seeing it for the first time is likely to be amazed.
During fishing season, the Yom River fills with motorboats fitted with sanun, racing back and forth across the current.
The principle is surprisingly simple.
Imagine a long-tail boat large enough to hold a substantial catch.
At its bow is a sanun: a long lever attached to what resembles an enormous bamboo scoop.
Once the boat reaches a suitable stretch of water, one person throws their body weight onto the end of the lever.
The giant scoop rises.
Fish are lifted directly out of the river.
Those on board then scoop the fish into containers inside the boat.
They repeat this again and again until the boat is full, then return to shore.
At the riverbank, traders from many places wait to buy the catch and take it elsewhere for resale.
A boy shifted his weight onto the wooden beam.
The sanun rose slowly from the water.
An astonishing mass of pla soi appeared inside it.
Again.
And again.
Within minutes, the boat headed back to shore.
“How many kilos d’you want?”
the fisherman asked us.
“About twenty kilos. We’re making fish sauce.”
“Why make it yourself? Just buy some! Right over there, a bit further down — Grandma Nuan’s house.”
The fish seller seemed genuinely puzzled.
Why go through all the trouble when authentic Ban Kong fish sauce was already being made just down the road?
Good question.
Na Nuan — Third Generation
Na Nuan is a third-generation fish-sauce maker.
The recipe came down to her from her grandfather and her mother.
She told us that when she was young, her mother made fish sauce and carried it on shoulder poles to other districts, where it was sold or exchanged for rice.
Today, Na Nuan still makes fish sauce and pla ra, and shares her knowledge with anyone interested.
One of my aunts — another daughter of Grandma Pranee — confirmed another part of the story.
When she was a child, she travelled by songthaew to school in Phitsanulok.
Fish-sauce sellers would board the same morning vehicle.
Some carried fish sauce in metal tins.
Others tied it up in plastic bags.
Everyone — vendors, fish sauce, and schoolchildren — squeezed into the same songthaew.
Shoulder to shoulder.
If a bag had not been tied properly, fish sauce would slosh and spill all over the vehicle.
And on those days, the Ban Kong children arrived at school carrying a fine fish-sauce aroma with them for the rest of the day.
Salt
Khlong Phi Khut, Chachoengsao
We chose salt from Khlong Phi Khut not merely because of its saltiness.
It comes from a landscape where fresh water, brackish water, and salt water meet.
Its salinity does not taste sharp.
It dissolves easily.
And it is produced through a process dependent on sun, wind, water, time, and human skill.
Salt farming does not begin with water already concentrated enough for crystals to appear.
Water must be moved through different areas and stages so that its salinity gradually increases.
Throughout this process, salt farmers continuously observe weather, sunshine, wind, and salinity.
No two days offer exactly the same conditions.
Evaporation cannot be controlled by the clock alone.
As sunlight and wind remove more water through evaporation, the volume decreases while the dissolved salts remain.
The solution becomes increasingly concentrated until salt begins to separate from the water and form crystals.
Tiny crystals appear first.
They gradually accumulate and grow according to the condition of the water, its salinity, temperature, sunlight, and wind.
Salt making, then, is not simply a matter of “leaving water to dry.”
It requires reading nature and managing the rhythm of water.
A salt farmer must know when to release water, when to wait, and when the crystals are ready to harvest.
There is no shortcut around observation and patience.
Perhaps this is why Khlong Phi Khut salt feels so compatible with fish-sauce fermentation.
Neither process is created by ingredients alone.
Both depend on carefully managing surrounding conditions:
water, air, temperature, time, and the experience of those who keep watch.
Fish sauce is no different.
We may determine the proportion of fish to salt.
But we cannot command fermentation to become “ready” exactly when we want it to.
What we can do is create suitable conditions.
Then allow nature and time to design the process — and, ultimately, the flavour.
Uncle Maew’s Salt Farm
Fleur de sel from Uncle Maew’s salt farm, Khlong Phi Khut, Chachoengsao
Uncle Maew’s salt farm sits where three kinds of water meet: fresh, salt, and brackish water.
We chose his salt because of its complex flavour and because we felt it was particularly suited to making fish sauce.
We owe special thanks to P’ Ton, Anusorn Tipayanon, who brought us here and introduced us to Uncle Maew — a salt maker who still works by observing the sun, wind, water, and salinity every day.
Uncle Maew was the person who made us begin to see salt as something more than a seasoning.
Salt is an ingredient with seasons.
It has rhythm.
And throughout its making, it requires experience, observation, and judgement.
We saw that a handful of salt crystals requires water, sunlight, wind, time, and a person who understands the seasons, knows how to wait, and knows the right moment for harvest.
From that day onward, the salt we put into our fish-sauce jars was no longer simply “salt that tasted good.”
It was salt with a place behind it.
With a person behind it.
And with a way of thinking behind it.
From Earthen Jar to Glass
No one knows exactly when people in Sukhothai first began making fish sauce.
What we do know is that the Yom River around Ban Kong was once extraordinarily rich in fish, especially pla soi.
People of Sukhothai who describe themselves as children of the river told us that when the flood season arrives, schools of pla soi swim upstream toward the north in search of places to spawn.
This account echoes Na Phit’s memory.
He told us that the fish travelled from the direction of Nakhon Sawan, swimming upstream along the Yom River before spreading into flooded fields to reproduce each year.
We cannot know where every school begins its journey.
Nor can we know precisely what first calls them back.
Perhaps it is water temperature.
Rain.
A new body of water entering the river.
Water level.
Or several changes occurring at once.
But river people know this:
when the river begins to change,
the pla soi return.
When the fish arrived with the flood season, the people of Ban Kong processed what they caught.
Some became dried fish.
Salted fish.
Grilled fish.
Pla ra.
And fish sauce.
These foods were kept throughout the year or exchanged with neighbouring communities.
Fish sauce, then, was not created merely to season food.
It was a way of preserving fish so that food could last beyond its season — allowing a household to keep eating and living as the year moved on.
The method was passed from household to household, generation to generation.
Traditionally, fish sauce was fermented in large earthenware jars.
The jars could hold a great quantity of fish and remain outdoors in the sun for long periods.
Inside, a woven bamboo basket was positioned in the centre so that liquid from the fish and salt could gradually collect there.
When the fermentation was ready, the liquid was ladled out and filtered.
Some methods also involved boiling before bottling.
When we decided to make fish sauce ourselves, we changed one thing.
We replaced the earthenware jar with glass.
Not because we wanted to reject the traditional method.
Not because we wanted to alter the flavour.
We wanted to see.
We wanted to watch what happened to fish, salt, and time throughout the process.
Glass revealed what earthenware had kept hidden.
We watched liquid slowly appear.
We watched the bodies of fish lose their form.
We saw the colour deepen.
We saw fat, solids, and sediment gradually separate into layers — all without opening the lid or scooping anything out.
Glass was also easier to clean.
It absorbed neither liquid nor odour.
Each jar was small enough to lift, move, and observe individually.
For us, changing the vessel did not change the principle of fermentation.
It simply adjusted the method to suit what we wanted to learn.
Day One
On the first day, we washed the pla soi from the Yom River.
River fish were already relatively clean.
Usually, only a few leaves or tiny twigs remained among them.
Once washed and thoroughly drained, the fish were mixed with fleur de sel at a ratio of four parts fish to one part salt.
We packed the mixture into glass jars.
Closed the lids.
And placed them outdoors.
Before long, liquid began to appear.
When fish are mixed with salt, water is gradually drawn out from their tissues while salt penetrates inward.
The water from the fish combines with salt to form a concentrated brine.
This lowers the amount of water available for microorganisms to use and restricts the growth of many organisms unable to tolerate such salinity.
At the same time, enzymes naturally present in the flesh and digestive system of the fish continue to function.
Large proteins gradually break down into smaller peptides and amino acids.
Certain salt-tolerant microorganisms may also contribute to the development and transformation of aroma and flavour later in the process.
We could not see enzymes or microorganisms with the naked eye.
But we could see traces of their work.
Fish flesh slowly lost its form.
The volume of liquid increased.
Its colour darkened.
Day after day, we watched.
Some days there were bubbles.
Some days the level of liquid changed, or the layers inside shifted.
On many days, almost nothing seemed different.
But seeing nothing did not mean nothing was happening.
I still remember how it felt to stare into that first jar of fish sauce.
It was ridiculously exciting.
Opening the Jar
After approximately six or seven months, we opened the jars to add pineapple.
We stirred together fish, salt, liquid, and pineapple, then closed the lids once more.
Pineapple does more than add sweetness or aroma.
It introduces an entirely new set of components into the jar:
water, sugar, acid, and the enzyme bromelain.
In principle, bromelain can break proteins into smaller molecules.
Sugar may provide energy for certain microorganisms.
Acids may alter the pH and parts of the chemical balance within the jar.
Fresh pineapple may also introduce microorganisms carried on its skin and flesh.
But that does not mean all of them will survive or multiply.
The environment inside the jar is already highly saline, and an established system has already developed.
Such conditions select only organisms capable of adapting to life in the jar.
Stirring also brings layers that had separated back into contact:
salt, liquid, fish flesh, pineapple, and sediment.
Opening and stirring briefly expose the internal system to outside air.
Then the lid is closed again.
Everything slowly separates and finds a new equilibrium.
We did not analyse the microorganisms.
We did not measure enzyme activity.
We had no control jar fermented without pineapple for comparison.
So we cannot say with certainty how much pineapple changed what happened inside.
Nor can we know what the final result would have been without it.
What we can say is this:
from that day onward,
the kingdom inside the jar was no longer the same.
Fish and salt that had lived together for six months were suddenly joined by new nutrients, enzymes, acids, water, and perhaps new living organisms carried in with the pineapple.
Protein breakdown and the formation of flavour now continued under a new set of conditions.
Perhaps this is one meaning of experimentation.
We cannot know in advance where something we introduce will lead.
We have only the knowledge we have been able to gather.
Methods handed down through stories.
And what we can see through the glass.
We closed the jar again.
From that day onward, nothing more was added.
Fish, salt, and pineapple were left together inside.
Through sunlight. Heat. Night. Seasons.
And more than two additional years of time.
A new period of watching began.
Fish Sauce Left to the Sun
More than three hundred days had passed since we added the pineapple and closed the lid.
We did nothing else to the jars.
We simply left them outdoors to receive sun and rain, making sure that they remained in an open place with sufficient sunlight, tightly sealed and without leaks.
People in Sukhothai call fish sauce made this way nam pla tak dai.
Phran Kob — a hunter, local guide, and keeper of knowledge of the land of Phra Ruang — and I suspect that the expression may be related to the Sukhothai dialect word duat dai, meaning something like leaving a thing sitting there, unattended.
During the day, sunlight passed through the glass.
The jar and the liquid inside gradually accumulated heat.
After sunset, that heat slowly dissipated.
Temperatures fell through the night.
This cycle repeated every day.
And it changed with the seasons.
It was as though the jar contained its own tiny climate.
Heat may accelerate certain enzymatic activities, microbial processes, and chemical reactions.
When temperature falls, some of these processes may slow.
At very high temperatures, however, certain enzymes and microorganisms may also become less active.
We did not measure the temperature inside the jars.
Nor did we keep another jar in the shade for comparison.
So we cannot say exactly how the sunlight of Sukhothai shaped the flavour.
We know only that this fish sauce did not ferment at a constant temperature.
It passed again and again through the cycles of day, night, and season in Sukhothai for three years.
Longer time allowed slow processes to continue.
Proteins gradually broke down into peptides and amino acids.
The smell of fish slowly became the smell of fermentation.
The liquid grew darker.
Solids, fat, and sediment gradually separated from the liquid.
Free glutamate is one important contributor to umami.
But the flavour of fish sauce does not come from any single compound.
Amino acids, peptides, salt, and many substances involved in aroma and taste gradually come together to produce saltiness, umami, fullness of flavour, and the aftertaste that remains after swallowing.
After three years, we opened the jar again.
The fish barely resembled their original form.
Solids, liquid, fat, and sediment had become a fine, fibrous mass.
We separated the liquid from the solids, then filtered it again through a coffee dripper and paper filter.
Gradually, the amber-brown liquid became clearer.
It was bottled in glass and returned to the sun for approximately another two weeks.
What We Chose to Keep
Although we replaced the earthenware jar with glass, what we chose to hold on to remained rooted in the old way.
We used mature young pla soi from the Yom River, fish that had grown according to the seasons.
We relied on fishing practices rooted in local ways of life and not intended to destroy the natural system.
We chose fleur de sel from a place with its own distinctive character, used in an appropriate proportion.
And we relied on sunlight, environment, inherited knowledge, and the long duration of waiting.
We did not transform traditional knowledge into something else.
We simply changed the vessel so that we could see inside it — and so that it could be cleaned, moved, and managed more easily.
Then we took what we could observe and tried to understand it in greater detail.
Sometimes development does not mean abandoning what previous generations have done.
But neither does it necessarily mean keeping everything exactly as it was without question.
Perhaps what matters most when inheriting knowledge is learning to recognise:
what is the core that should remain,
what is a method that may change,
and how existing knowledge can continue its journey forward.
In our own passage of time, this bottle of fish sauce was not created by traditional knowledge alone.
Nor was it created by new experimentation alone.
It emerged because the two were allowed to exist together inside the same jar.
Through days. Nights. Seasons.
Again and again.
For three years.
This is fish sauce in the way of Taste from the Root.
Three Years Later
We began with Grandma’s story.
We travelled to learn from the people of Ban Kong.
We searched for pla soi from the Yom River.
We went as far as Khlong Phi Khut in search of a particular salt.
Then we brought everything back
and placed it inside a glass jar.
Three years later,
when we opened the jar,
we did not find only fish sauce.
We discovered that a flavour can exist
because there are still people who catch fish,
because there are still people who make salt,
because there is still a river
that gives life to both fish and people,
and because somewhere,
someone still remembers
how this thing was once made
and how it was once used.
This bottle of fish sauce was never made by us alone.
We merely gathered what we encountered along the way
and entrusted it to time.
And for as long as this flavour remains in the kitchen,
as long as it remains in every mouthful people eat,
the roots behind that flavour
have not disappeared.