This is fish sauce. It sounds gross, right? I bought it because several recipes I wanted to try required it. As incapable as I am at following recipes, I should have known better. I thought it would be like the letter "K" in the word "know" or "knee" or "knock"...silent, but necessary. I thought WRONG. At least it was wrong for Courtney's-impossible-attempt-at-following-a-recipe meal. I tried it again in a few other dishes and it was just plain awful. I know that it is a staple in some of the restaurant meals I love, but Jared and I agreed to leave this one to the experts.
So as we were packing the last few items from our kitchen at the apartment, I came across a huge bottle of fish sauce (that I bought two months ago when I was under the impression that I would be using it at least once a week as the silently special ingredient that gave my asian dishes that hint of something that made it juuuuuust right) and decided to chuck it and go back to cooking with out it. I resumed cleaning the kitchen; tossing whatever wasn't making it over to the new house into a garbage bag when suddenly... Something smelled like dog food. 'What the heck is that SMELL? Oh good grief! Whoa!' The smell transformed into something waaaay worse. Like an explosion, it was sudden and impactful and caught me off guard. I realized the garbage bag I had been throwing everthing in had a hole in it. Jared passed by. He arched his back as if he were trying to leave his head in the next room while the rest of him walked forward. "Ohhhhh!" he twisted his face. "Wha?" "Fish sauce." Immediately he picked up the bag unknowing of the hole. "Its leaking!" I called, "put it in that box so it doesn't get onto the carpet." He set the bag down and I cleaned the floor trying not to wretch.
A few minutes later he returned to load up the box with more trash and when the box was all full he went to lift it to take it down to the car. But when he went to pick it up, the box began dripping fish sauce! He hurried back to the kitchen to avoid getting it in the carpet, lest our apartment manager think we were hiding a body in the walls. We decided to throw it in a contractor bag. He took alllllll the trash out of the box and loaded it into the contractor bag (which, if you are unfamiliar, is like a huge superman- strengthed garbage bag) and hauled it down to the car and out to the dumpster. My fish sauce woes were over.
Or so I thought. Somehow the fish sauce in its evil mischief wound up leaking onto the carpet in the trunk of my car. When I innocently went to load the babies into the car for a trip to Kohls today, I was assaulted by the smell. I cleaned and cleaned to no avail. Will this stuff just wear off? or will I be living (or dying) by this smell for the life of my car? Does anyone know?
7 comments:
That is horrible. Good luck investing a ton of money into febreeze and oust and such. try baking soda and vinegar, too, to get the smell out.
Oh my gosh. Good thing you aren't pregnant right now and not feeling well- it would be ten times worse. Sometimes places like the wash tub have stronger professional stuff they can use- depending on how much you want to spend...
when are we going to see you again?!
I hear ya. Fish sauce is frightening. We moved some down to texas with us. What were we thinking?? I hope that febreeze can help with the smell. Also I've found that letting baking soda sit on the stinky spot for as long as you can (like overnight) and then vacuuming helps. Good luck
OMG! Maybe try Fabreeze. I'm so glad you have uncovered this horrible product. I have the same nightmares over packaged crawfish. To this day Markus doesn't think I know how to make etoufee. It was all bc of the smelly nasty packaged crawfish I bought from Walmart! Grrr....Dude this stuff has caused way too much trouble than it was worth, huh?
I remember you had a little bottle of it when we lived in BR and I had never even heard of it. All it took was one little whiff and I was convinced that the stuff was from the devil. Nothing that smells that awful could be good for anything but causing trouble.
Since Clint served his mission in Thailand, we own fish sauce. I does smell nasty but some dishes just don't taste right without it. I've had to learn how to use it.
I use a vinegar and water solution that I keep in a spray bottle for all my stinky stuff. It's nice to always have around with a boy. I've discovered it works better than anything else. Even dog pee. Or boy pee...
Oh Courtney, That's awful. Just reading the post made me feel a little sicky for you. If that had happened to me I would definetely have lost my lunch or breakfast or everything in my body. I have been more nauseous this time than with the other two. I haven't gotten physically sick yet, but smells and most food make me feel gross.
You might try odo-ban in the car, it is pretty powerful stuff (you can find it with cleaning products at most stores, I have a big jug from sam's). I hope you get it worked out.
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