the library

Fish sauce

Savory & ferment· ferment vinegar

What it is

Fish sauce is a liquid condiment made by fermenting fish, typically anchovies, with salt for months.

What it tastes like

On the nose: umami, acid, saline, potato. Among its measured molecules: 2,6-Diethylpyrazine, trimethylamine, methional, phenylacetaldehyde, decanal.

Every one of its 14 compounds carries a paper the library can cite.

• phenylacetaldehydearomaaldehydeMeasured in 23 of 341 ingredients.cite

  OAV 17.36 in the unheated sauce, threshold 4 μg/kg; above threshold in all seven columns of the table, so it survives cooking rather than being made by it — Xu et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row 'Benzene acetaldehyde', column 'U')
• trimethylaminearomanitrogen compoundreads as saline taste (PubChem)Measured in 6 of 341 ingredients.cite

  OAV 251.75 against a 2.4 μg/kg odour threshold — the dominant odorant of unheated fish sauce by a factor of eight over anything else in the paper's shortlist, and above threshold in every cooked treatment too (152.23 to 432.73) — Xu et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1 (Key volatile compounds in fish sauces following different cooking processes), row 'Trimethylamine', column 'U' (unheated))
• L-aspartic acidtasteacidreads as sourMeasured in 9 of 341 ingredients.cite

  3.81 ± 0.13 mg/100 mL in the unheated sauce — the second of the two compounds the paper's footnote names as the umami amino acids, and the smaller of the pair by a factor of eleven — Xu et al. 2025, Foods (Table 2, row 'Asp', column 'U')
• phenylethyl alcoholaromaalcoholreads as sharp burning taste (PubChem)Measured in 42 of 341 ingredients.cite

  OAV 1.40 in the unheated sauce against a 45 μg/kg threshold — the only alcohol in the paper's shortlist, and it drops below detection after 30 minutes of stir-frying — Xu et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row 'Phenylethyl alcohol', column 'U')
• L-leucinetasteacidreads as bitterMeasured in 3 of 341 ingredients.cite

  1489.3 ± 1.55 mg/100 mL in the unheated sauce — by a wide margin the largest free amino acid measured, and by the paper's own footnote one of the bitter amino acids; a taste-active non-volatile — Xu et al. 2025, Foods (Table 2 (Free amino acids (FAAs) concentration (mg/100 mL) in fish sauces following different cooking processes), row 'Leu', column 'U')
• phenylalaninetasteacidreads as bitterMeasured in 2 of 341 ingredients.cite

  882.33 ± 5.91 mg/100 mL in the unheated sauce, the second largest free amino acid; grouped by the paper's footnote with the bitter amino acids — Xu et al. 2025, Foods (Table 2, row 'Phe', column 'U')
• L-valinetasteacidreads as sweet, bitterMeasured in 1 of 341 ingredients.cite

  399.26 ± 0.94 mg/100 mL in the unheated sauce; grouped by the paper's footnote with the bittersweet amino acids — Xu et al. 2025, Foods (Table 2, row 'Val', column 'U')
• L-isoleucinetasteacidreads as bitterMeasured in 1 of 341 ingredients.cite

  708.12 ± 1.53 mg/100 mL in the unheated sauce; bitter by the paper's grouping — Xu et al. 2025, Foods (Table 2, row 'Ile', column 'U')
• decanalaromaaldehydereads as citrus (PubChem)Measured in 37 of 341 ingredients.cite

  OAV 22.20 in the unheated sauce against the lowest threshold in the table, 0.1 μg/kg; it climbs sharply on stir-frying (235.50 to 293.90) — Xu et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row 'Decanal', column 'U')
• methionalaromasulfur compoundreads as cooked potato (PubChem)Measured in 11 of 341 ingredients.cite

  OAV 30.98 in the unheated sauce, threshold 0.4 μg/kg; the paper notes 'Excluding F30, the methional content was higher in cooked samples than in unheated samples in this study' — Xu et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row 'Methional', column 'U')
• nonanalaromaaldehydereads as orange-rose (PubChem)Measured in 62 of 341 ingredients.cite

  476.5682 μg/mL in a naturally fermented anchovy fish sauce at seven months — the WQ series is the paper's traditional process, '30% of the sea salt was mixed with the anchovies, and naturally fermented for 7 months at an outdoor temperature environment' — Han et al. 2023, Frontiers in Nutrition (Table 1 (Volatile flavor compounds detected in different fish sauces using SPME-GC-MS), row 'Nonanal', column 'WQ7M')
• L-glutamic acidtasteacidreads as umami, sourMeasured in 7 of 341 ingredients.cite

  43.8 ± 0.15 mg/100 mL in the unheated sauce. The paper's footnote defines 'Umami amino acids: Glu and Asp', and its 'Umami amino acids' row totals 47.61 ± 0.08 mg/100 mL for the unheated sauce — so glutamate is 92% of the umami amino-acid pool this paper measures. A taste-active non-volatile, invisible to any volatiles table — Xu et al. 2025, Foods (Table 2, row 'Glu', column 'U')
• 2,6-DiethylpyrazinearomapyrazineMeasured in 2 of 341 ingredients.cite

  OAV 2.02 in the unheated sauce, threshold 6 μg/kg; named by the paper alongside 2,3,5-methylpyrazine as occurring in unheated fish sauce — Xu et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row '2,6-Diethylpyrazine', column 'U')