Fermented fish is a traditional preservation of fish. Before refrigeration, canning and other modern preservation techniques became available, fermenting was an important preservation method. Fish rapidly spoils, or goes rotten, unless some method is applied to stop the bacteria that produce the spoilage. Fermentation is a method which attacks the ability of microbials to spoil fish. It does this by making the fish muscle more acidic; bacteria usually cease multiplying when the pH drops below 4.5.
Traditional burnay jars sealed with bottle gourds containing fermenting fish (bagoong) in the Philippines
Image: Bagoong 1
Image: Bottarga
Image: 9750Foods Fruits Baliuag Bulacan Philippines 29
Garum is a fermented fish sauce that was used as a condiment in the cuisines of Phoenicia, ancient Greece, Rome, Carthage and later Byzantium. Liquamen is a similar preparation, and at times they were synonymous. Although garum enjoyed its greatest popularity in the Western Mediterranean and the Roman world, it was earlier used by the Greeks.
Garum amphorae from Pompeii
Ruins of a garum factory in Baelo Claudia in Spain
Ancient Roman garum factory in Portugal
Mosaic depicting a "Flower of Garum" jug with a titulus reading "from the workshop of the garum importer Aulus Umbricius Scaurus"
