Nước Mắm

Prompt: Write About A Time You Felt Out of Place

Nước mắm, also known as fish sauce in English, is a staple of Vietnamese cuisine. Fish sauce is a liquid condiment made out of fermented fish or krill. Fish sauce is added to practically every single Vietnamese dish and sometimes used to "enhance" American dishes. For instance, when my grandmother first taught me how to cook scrambled eggs she taught me to season the eggs with fish sauce and I didn't realize this was abnormal until years later. My mom cooked a traditional Thanksgiving this year and I remember she remarked that cooking American food was so weird because she didn't have to use any fish sauce. So when I say fish sauce is a staple of Vietnamese cuisine, that was actually a bit of an understatement. Fish sauce is everywhere in Vietnamese cooking. I'm not joking. When I was googling how to make fish sauce, I found this food blogging website that stated fish sauce is such an integral part of Vietnamese cuisine that it should be a "prerequisite" to being Vietnamese. And, I don't know how to put this, but they're both wrong and not wrong at the same time.

My mom always complains that I'm a picky eater and she's not wrong. When I was young, I ate a lot of fish sauce because the rest of my family did so. I don't remember when it happened, but one day I stopped liking the taste of fish sauce. Looking back I think my hatred of fish sauce stems from my hatred of condiments, in general (There's a special kind of hatred I reserve for mayo and ketchup). Nevertheless, refusing to eat fish sauce became a part of my identity. Every dinner my mom used to pass the fish sauce container and I would refuse. Eventually, my mom just stopped asking me if I wanted fish sauce with my food (Although I'm 100% certain that she sometimes sneaks fish sauce into my food). Looking back, I think my dislike for fish sauce was special in that it somehow embedded itself in my identity. I hate ketchup but my hatred for ketchup isn't a defining feature of who I am. My hatred for the fish sauce isn't an inherently defining trait of mine, rather my family's response to my hatred of fish sauce made my dislike of fish sauce into an identity.

Whenever I refuse to eat fish sauce my mom would always joke that I've become more American than Vietnamese. She would always say that phrase in a jovial tone but I could always hear the undercurrent of disappointment my mom hid underneath that phrase. On the flip side, whenever I did something "Vietnamese" my family would always act so surprised as if a miracle had occurred. I remember saying a Vietnamese idiom and how my parents stopped their conversation to congratulate me for speaking Vietnamese on a basic level. I remember stress eating chè đậu đen (which is a Vietnamese dessert that's basically composed of a sweet soup made out of black beans and covered with a sweet coconut sauce) at midnight. My mom walked into the kitchen and remarked that she was surprised that I knew how to eat chè đậu đen. She didn't say it aloud but I could read between the lines, my mom was surprised that I was "Vietnamese enough" to be able to eat chè đậu đen. So, in some strange way, my dislike of fish sauce represents some sort of cultural divide between myself and my parents. Somehow I'm not "Vietnamese enough" because I can't eat fish sauce or have a different palate than my parents. And I know it's stupid to base your cultural identity on what type of food you eat and there isn't any correct way to be Vietnamese, but sometimes the jokes still get to me. Sometimes I'll be eating dinner with my parents. We would be speaking Vietnamese around the dining room table but as I watch my parents dip their eggrolls into their fish sauce or season their noodles with fish sauce, I would still feel out of place. I would feel too American.

Even though I rarely eat fish sauce, I have vivid childhood memories associated with it. My family ironically stores fish sauce in one of those Kikkoman brand soy sauce containers. So even though the bottle's label still says soy sauce, trust me, there isn't any soy sauce in there. We've also never replaced our fish sauce container -- I'm pretty sure that bottle is older than me. I also remember that when we bought fish sauce from the store, my mom had to specifically buy this brand that had three crabs on the label. Usually, we buy fish sauce in bulk. I remember we once bought this entire cardboard box filled with at least ten bottles of fish sauce. And of course, I remember the distinctly pungent scent of fish sauce. So even though I rarely eat fish sauce, when other Vietnamese people make jokes about fish sauce I can still relate to them. I still laugh at my cousins' jokes about fish sauce. So ironically enough, while fish sauce still represents a cultural divide between myself and Vietnamese culture, I still use fish sauce as a common connection point between myself and the rest of my Vietnamese family. It's weird to say this but fish sauce simultaneously represents how I feel "too American" and "not American enough".