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Comment by fasteo | Hacker News Reader

A friend of mine - wine maker - here in Spain, brought his own garum recipe to market a few years ago [1]. He's is having tremendous success selling to restaurants.

[1] https://www.abuelaconcha.com/tienda/salsa-flor-garum-100ml/

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The most difficult aspect of making garum is the brutal stink after only a couple of days. If you live in a flat/row house it is pretty much impossible without causing grave offense.

This wasn't my experience at all, go figure! I made a shrimp and a sardine (from frozen) one.

That is exorbitant for anchovies + salt + time. It could be half the price and still marketed as a premium, niche thing.

€25 euro is exorbitant?? For a condiment you are meant to use extremely small quantities of?

I mean I get the point, but a bottle like this can last you months, it's not exactly bank breaking.

You can get very premium Vietnamese fish sauces (also just anchovies and salt) which are smoked and aged in Bourbon barrels for years... for about 1/3rd the price.

Well, you're kind of missing the economy of scale. If it ever became more popular, I'm sure the price would drop.

I wouldn't be surprised if the price went up if it became popular at its price. Definite Veblen good vibes.

I need to figure out what I can use it in, but ordering one to try. I wonder how it compares to asian style fish sauce.

It's quite salty, so basically you can use it pretty much everywhere instead of salt. For example you can use it with seafood, like ravioli with mussels, or with mushrooms. Its smell is heavy but the taste is superb.

I wonder if it works for meat and poultry stews as well

It works for steaks

I use a good asian fish sauce in beef stews (and chili, or cuban-style picadillo, etc) -- nobody notices any fishy taste, it just bumps up the umami and "beefiness"!

Following Kenji Lopez-Alt, I’ve put it in Bolognese sauce where it does surreptitiously add a bit of umami and body.

Marmite and Vegemite are also really good for adding some umami-saltiness to tomato sauces and stews without being very noticeable for what they are. (Assuming I can stop myself from spreading it all on toast first...)

It does, wonderfully.

Fish sauces are a common addition to stews of all kinds! Works well.

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