SOMETHING FISHY

It was the ancient Romans who first made garum fashionable. Now this alchemical flavour booster is again achieving star ingredient status – and its fans are some of our most progressive chefs.

- FIONA DONNELLY.

Pasta. Parmigiano. Garlic. Olive oil. And fish sauce. Fish sauce? If you had to name staples of La Cucina Italiana, we’d probably agree on the first four. But fish sauce? Not so much. Yet garum, a savoury condiment made from sundried fish guts – and all its various iterations – were once cornerstones of Italian cooking. And ancient Romans spread a love for this funky, pungent, salty garum throughout Europe. Fast-forward to 2022 and this umami explosion is enjoying a new moment in the sun, with ambitious chefs brewing new interpretations, pushing garum in wildly innovative directions.

The team at Noma in Copenhagen are the modern pioneers of next-generation garums. In February influential Noma founder, chef René Redzepi, announced they had chosen a vegan garum made with smoked mushrooms to kick off the Noma Pantry range they’ve been working on for two decades. And it’s not just Scandinavian chefs who are pushing boundaries. Last year, chef Matt Stone showed us how Aussie garden crickets and mealworms can be turned into garum during his stint at Melbourne’s Federation Square, as part of the Future Food System project. Fish guru Josh Niland nudges the technique even further in his latest book, Take One Fish: The New School of Scale-to-Tail Cooking and Eating with a recipe for custard tart slathered with a sardine garum caramel.

At Scandi-influenced Elska in Brisbane, neo-garums are also a key component on the flavour-forward menu of Gourmet Traveller’s Queensland Restaurant of the Year.

Elska’s chef-owner Nathan Dunnell brewed his first batch of smoked Spanish mackerel garum during the first lockdown in 2020. It’s been on the menu ever since, a reminder good things can come out of bad times.