Peter Ingram has a plan to save the Gippsland Lakes from European Carp by turning the pest species into salty sauce using a 2000 year old recipe. The 58 year old started fishing professionally as a 13 year old, netting long finned eels on the Snowy River in Far East Gippsland. A decade back he set up shop in the lakes and rivers around Sale in Gippsland, 220km east of Melbourne. There he caught eels for export to China and carp for lobster bait for the Bass Strait fishermen. “That bloody virus really knocked us for six,” says Ingram. “We knew the Coronavirus was going to cause havoc when all our Chinese eel orders were cancelled early on in 2020,” he says. “A good week before we even started just talking about it here.” After the eel export dried up he was struck by another blow. The Chinese stopped taking Australian lobsters. “That was our bait business gone.” With business shrinking Ingram started thinking.

 His partner is Revelina Vite, a Filipino woman and an exceptional cook. Ingram had watched her prepare her repertoire of dishes from the Philippines using patis, or fish sauce. She used it in dishes like the rich, sour and delicious sinigang soup or mixed with cumquat juice and soy sauce for a dip for her spring rolls. “So, early into COVID I started researching fish sauces,” says Ingram proudly.  He discovered that Australia imports around 5 million litres of fish sauce annually. Some of it is exceptional. “A lot of it is very ordinary,” says Ingram. “Ask my partner.” He discovered a lot of recipes for fish sauce from South East Asia. “But most of them just tell you to put fish in a concrete hole in the ground, add salt, cover it with corrugated iron and let it fester in the sun,” he says with a laugh. He then came across a Roman recipe for fish sauce dating back to pre-Christian times. He followed the recipe, pulverising carp into a rough pulp and putting it into food grade containers with salt and leaving it to ferment. “One little problem we encountered was that neither the local council nor PrimeSafe (Victoria’s meat licencing authority) have much experience with a 2000 year old fish fermenting recipe,” he says. “So, let’s say it was a learning process for everyone.” Ingram is tight lipped about times and temperatures but pulls out a sample that is three quarters along the maturation process. It is a deep and heady brew, gold in the sunlight, no trace of muddiness, with a salty fresh zing whilst balancing a sensory razor’s edge between decay and deliciousness.

The raw material for Ingram’s fish sauce is European Carp - a noxious pest introduced to Australia’s waterways over a century ago and have since infested Gippsland’s lakes, rivers and wetlands devastating bio-diversity and ruining water quality. Standing on the historic Sale Swing Bridge spanning the Thompson River, Ingram points to the water below where a plume of dark muddy water billows to the surface. It’s carp feeding. “Carp, when they are hungry and in big numbers, burrow into the mud foraging for worms and prawns,” he says. “We have seen them burrow two metres into the bank. The result is that the banks are being undermined and we are losing our river red gums.” He points to an old river gum on the opposite bank that is now lying, dying in the water. “The old river fishermen say the forest along the river is almost unrecognisable,” says Ingram with a hint of frustration. “Some of the trees the carp are killing are aboriginal scar trees.” Ingram and his assistant Don Enriquez fish the carp using an electrified scoop net that stuns the fish in a four metre diameter around his 9 metre aluminium punt called Him. The stunned fish are placed into bins of oxygenated water and then packed into ice slurry.  Some are sold fresh to the Sydney and Melbourne fish markets. “That oxygen and slurry, that’s the secret to get rid of the muddy taste,” he says. His fishing has seen carp numbers depleted and the environment improved in certain areas. “You can see where we have been regularly fishing for carp,” says Ingram, “We keep the numbers down, the fish don’t get hungry, so they don’t burrow into the mud and the water is clear.” While his fish sauce programme is in pilot stage, with the assistance of regional peak body Food and Fibre Gippsland, he plans to commercialise the sauce and distribute it nationally creating employment for around ten people in this region hungry for jobs. “When you get given carp,” says Ingram. “You make fish sauce.”  

Fish Sauce 101

Fish sauce has been made for thousands of years across the Classical world and East Asia. The Greeks and Early Romans called it garum, the later Romans called it liquamen. It is still made in Sicily today from anchovies and it is called colatura di alici. In East Asia, fish sauce is known as patis in the Philippines, nam-pla in Thailand, nuoc-man in Vietnam and shottsuru in Japan. It is made when halophilic (salt loving) bacteria and natural enzymes break the protein in the fish into amino acids such as glutamic acid –gives us a strong sensation of umami or deliciousness. While essential for Thai curries and Vietnamese dipping sauce it can add savoury punch in meat dishes such as burgers or braises. Brush it over poultry before roasting, add a dash to salad dressing and consider a teaspoon to stir fried noodle dishes.