8/12/2023 0 Comments Dried thai shrimp paste![]() When the Kristang went to Macau, she explains, they took foods like coconut and belacan with them “because Macau didn’t have those ingredients.” “My great-grandmother is a Malaysian descendant of the Portuguese settlers, the Kristang,” Batalha says. Their connection is personal for Susana Batalha, the chef and owner of Fat Tea Macanese Food, a restaurant in Selangor, Malaysia. Both places are linked by a history of Portuguese colonization and trade dating back to the 16th century. It is also no coincidence that fermented shrimp has similar-sounding names in Malaysia and Macau, where it is known as belacan and balichão, respectively. It was the main source of flavor, so when the kingdom of Cirebon deliberately stopped selling salt and terasi to the East Sunda kingdom, it caused a war. Ngapi-makers were listed in Burmese stone and marble inscriptions as early as the 12th century, while terasi predates modern-day Indonesia: The 18th-century Carita Purwaka manuscript, which details the history of the Cirebon Sultanate in Java, documents how terasi was widely traded in 15th-century Java between the sultanate and the East Sunda kingdom. Its roots, as such, run deep although the origin of fermented shrimp differs by country, it can be used to understand life, trade, and colonization in Southeast Asia. Those with discerning taste will be able to tell the difference between krill caught in the Andaman Sea versus Gulf of Thailand by the degree of its briny flavor or pungent aroma.įermented shrimp was born from the need to preserve food in a tropical environment before the invention of refrigeration. What is fermented shrimp? Is it an ‘ancient’ food?įermented shrimp only requires three ingredients: micro shrimp or krill, sun, and salt, all of which are abundant in Southeast Asia. Needless to say, there’s a lot to know about it. Whether it’s called terasi (Indonesia), belacan (Malaysia), balichão (Macau), kapi (Thailand), ngapi (Myanmar) or bagoong alamang (Philippines), it is the pungent, aromatic ingredient that gives many Asian dishes their signature taste. ![]() ![]() But what’s often missing in discussions of beloved fifth-taste foods (hello, miso and aged cheese) is a source of umami common in Southeast Asia, South China, and parts of Australia: fermented shrimp. By now, most people know enough about umami to be an interesting (or insufferable) dinner guest. ![]()
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