What if I told you that, as a well-travelled person, you have eaten a lot of fermented fish? That the fish has usually first been left out in the sun to decompose and the final version (which is served to you) is pure extract of fish. You would look at me in disbelief. Some of you would say things like, “But I don’t even eat fish, especially stinky fish!”

But no, there’s no getting around it. Fermented fish has probably made its way to your gullet at some stage in your life, even if you are a vegetarian.

From the most ancient of times cooks have always realised that fermented fish adds depth and savouriness to food. Long before the birth of Christ, a condiment called garum made from fermented fish was a mainstay of Roman kitchens. The Romans didn’t just use it as a kitchen flavouring. They treated it as pagan marmite smearing it on bread and enjoying it for its fermented taste alone.

You are unlikely to have come across garum. But you will almost certainly have met its Asian descendants. The most famous is nam pla, the Thai fish sauce. If you have eaten Thai food in Thailand or anywhere else abroad, you have probably enjoyed nam pla. If you have ordered Thai food in India then the chances are that you have eaten it even if your order was entirely vegetarian. Only if you had specifically told your server ‘no fish sauce’ could you be sure (well, kind of sure) that there was no fermented fish in your food.

Most Thai food is characterised by a layer of umami flavour that comes from nam pla. We don’t necessarily notice this because we are focusing on the herbs and the chilli. But take........

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