Keep the salty taste of homeland

For over 100 years, fish sauce in Vinh Truong ward (Nha Trang city) has been known to consumers for its rich, delicious flavor. Through the ups and downs of time, many families in Vinh Truong still try to preserve the traditional fish sauce making profession of their ancestors.

Chin Tuy fish sauce facility staff packing goods.

Traditional profession

Vinh Truong Ward is the cradle of traditional fish sauce in the coastal city. As soon as we arrived at Cua Be fishing village, we could smell the fragrant smell of fish sauce. Walking along Vo Thi Sau Street, we easily came across traditional fish sauce production facilities. According to the elders, the fish sauce making profession in Vinh Truong has been around for hundreds of years. People here often use anchovies or mackerel to make fish sauce, but the most delicious is anchovies. Anchovies from Khanh Hoa sea and Hon Khoi salt have contributed to making Cua Be fishing village fish sauce delicious. “For many years, I have been using anchovies to make fish sauce, the formula is 3 fish and 1 salt. The technique of making fish sauce looks simple on the outside, but each region has a different way of processing with its own secret. Due to the influence of the type of fish and the type of salt in each region, the fish sauce has many special and rich flavors. The anchovies are caught in the Nha Trang sea, where there is a mixture of 2 hot and cold water streams, the water source is clean, the anchovies are firm, fresh and “fat”, so Nha Trang fish sauce is very delicious”, shared Ms. Nguyen Thi Choi - a person with experience in making fish sauce.

Anchovies are purchased to make fish sauce at My Thuan fish sauce facility.

Following the story of fish sauce, Mr. Pham Minh Tuan - Chairman of the Farmers' Association of Vinh Truong Ward said: In the past, people made fish sauce mainly for family use, partly to supply people in Nha Trang City and neighboring areas. At that time, fish sauce did not have signs or marketing like today, but its quality and reputation were still known in many places as one of the local specialties. Later, when trade was better, many families made fish sauce in large quantities and sold it to the North, then opened companies to cooperate with large enterprises. Through the ups and downs of time, the experiences of making fish sauce from their ancestors were still retained by the people, but some production steps were reduced, manual methods were replaced by machines so that workers would save time and effort. Instead of using wooden barrels, for many years now, fish sauce makers in Vinh Truong have built large ponds for fermentation.

During its heyday, Vinh Truong fish sauce had many very large production facilities such as: Ngoc Trang, Ngoc An, Huong Lan, Thai Long, Trong Hue, My Thuan, Chin Tuy, Hanh Quyen, Hoa Cuc, Chau Son, Viet Hai... Most of these fish sauce makers are related, in which many fish sauce facility owners are brothers and sisters in the same family. In recent years, when fish sauce production was competed by large companies, and there was also a policy of moving fish sauce production facilities out of residential areas, many fish sauce production facilities moved to Ca Na ( Ninh Thuan ), some facilities stopped working. The difficulty in maintaining the traditional fish sauce profession made some people think that Nha Trang traditional fish sauce would die. However, many people who follow the fish sauce production profession in Vinh Truong still strive to maintain their jobs, enhancing the value of Nha Trang's traditional fish sauce.

Chin Tuy fish sauce facility staff prepare goods for sale.

Efforts to keep the job

Following Mr. Tuan, I visited the My Thuan fish sauce production facility - one of the oldest fish sauce production facilities in Vinh Truong with 3 generations of experience in this profession. Located deep in a small alley, the facility has dozens of large reservoirs, each holding about 30 - 40 tons of fish to make fish sauce on a large scale. The reservoirs are equipped with pumps to stir the "water" and pump the fish sauce. Mr. Le Huynh Nhu Thien - Director of My Thuan Fish Sauce Company Limited shared: "Since my grandmother's time, I have been making fish sauce for sale, but it was not until my father's time that we started doing it on a large scale. Currently, my family makes about 1,500 tons of fish/year, producing about 1 million liters of fish sauce. Of which, most of it is sold to large companies, only a small amount is bottled and sold to regular customers."

Mr. Le Huynh Nhu Thien checks the quality of fish sauce.

With 40 years of making traditional fish sauce, Chin Tuy fish sauce production facility is one of the famous traditional fish sauce brands in Vinh Truong. When we arrived, the staff of Chin Tuy One Member Co., Ltd. were busy preparing goods for Tet. Chin Tuy fish sauce produces fish sauce with 15 - 45 degrees of nitrogen, packaged in 3 types of bottles: 0.5 liter, 1 liter, 5 liters. Talking, Mr. Dang Tu Cuong - representative of Chin Tuy One Member Co., Ltd. said: "Every year, the company produces fish sauce made from anchovies caught in the waters of Khanh Hoa and neighboring provinces. In the past, the company exported fish sauce abroad, but now it is mainly consumed domestically through the supermarket system and domestic e-commerce sites. The company also supplies fish sauce to hotels and resorts to serve tourists ."

Whether making fish sauce to supply raw fish sauce or develop their own brand, fish sauce makers in Vinh Truong still fully follow the traditional fermentation process, no chemicals, delicious and rich flavor. The general formula that fish sauce makers often share is to mix "3 fish 1 salt" to make the fermentation. Then put the fermentation into a barrel/tank, then install a splint, press rocks on top to compact it, ferment for about 11 months before taking the fish sauce. That said, according to Mr. Thien, each family has its own secret to making fish sauce that is preserved in a "father-to-son" way, each family has their own experience when making fish sauce. He also has his own secrets and his experience is that if the fermentation is left for a long time, it will produce fish sauce with high protein content but will lose its flavor, the color of the fish sauce will not be beautiful...

In addition to maintaining the quality of traditional fish sauce, many traditional fish sauce brands in Nha Trang such as Ngoc Trang, Chin Tuy, Hanh Quyen... are interested in improving designs and brands to "conquer" consumers. In 2023, Hanh Quyen Company Limited pioneered in making fish sauce a 3-star OCOP product. Recently, Chin Tuy One Member Company Limited has had 3 fish sauce products recognized by the Nha Trang City People's Committee as 3-star OCOP products. The company is preparing documents to register 2 fish sauce products to achieve 4-star OCOP in 2025.

The fish sauce making profession has contributed significantly to changing the life of Vinh Truong people. In the story about the profession, some people also expressed concern that many families who make traditional fish sauce no longer maintain the profession. But I still believe that the traditional fish sauce making profession in Vinh Truong will last forever as long as there are still people who are passionate about the profession.

THANH NGUYEN

Source: https://baokhanhhoa.vn/phong-su/202501/giu-vi-man-que-huong-9d60b91/