Who Says Asian Food Has to Be Cheap?

Published on Wednesday, November 23, 2011, by Joyce Slaton / Edit Post

The website for Red Boat artisanal fish sauces describes its nước mắm in lofty language, with phrases that include “extra virgin,” “slow aged,” and “first press.” But in a product review at Amazon.com, where Red Boat is on sale for $24 for two 500-milliliter bottles, shopper Q. Tran sounds unimpressed: "Not any different from the 3 dollar fish sauce at your local Asian supermarket."

Consumers like Q. Tran have to be Red Boat owner Cuong Pham’s worst nightmare. A lot of serious cooks who wouldn't balk at paying $23 a pound for Parmigiano-Reggiano assume that even high-quality Asian ingredients should be priced low. When they’re not, they feel ripped off.

"Many consumers assume that food products coming from Asia have to be cheap," Pham explains via email. "Most Asians are price-sensitive and products are evaluated on price, not quality of ingredients. With that mindset, it's hard for manufacturers to put higher-priced artisanal products on the shelf."

Viet World Kitchen blogger Andrea Nguyen agrees. "Historically, people pay less for Asian products," says Nguyen, who's also the author of Into the Vietnamese Kitchen and the forthcoming Asian Tofu. "People say to me, ‘It's not good Asian if it's not cheap Asian.’ But if I'm willing to pay a ton for premium ingredients like balsamic vinegar and olive oil, why wouldn't I pay more for comparable Asian products?"

The assumption that Asian equals cheap is an old one, according to Andrew Coe in his 2009 book, Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States. It dates at least to the late 19th century, when Euro Americans were first venturing into Chinese restaurants in New York and San Francisco. Those early restaurants had a lot of atmosphere, thanks to things like red lanterns, and were also dead cheap—you could get a filling bowl of something called “chop suey” for 25 cents. Compare that to the 50-cent bowl of consomme at Delmonico's in 1899.

By the 1950s, most American Chinese restaurants pushed a standard set of "family dinners," where a table of four could get an entire meal (with soup and egg roll) for a dollar or two each. Food that cheap could only exist in a system where people worked illegally and kitchens took shortcuts with the food, conditions that still exist today.

"If we're willing to pay more, people at these so-called takeout joints will make more, and the food will be better," Nguyen says.

That shift is already well under way, with second-generation Asian chefs like Charles Phan and James Syhabout in the Bay Area and David Chang in New York. Will a market emerge for artisan Asian ingredients as well?

Matt Jamie hopes so. The owner of Bourbon Barrel Foods, which calls its Bluegrass Soy Sauce the only microbrewed soy in America, says he gets a lot of grief from customers over the price: $6 for 5 ounces. (A comparably sized bottle of Kikkoman is less than $3.)

"But it's like comparing Budweiser to a wine from Napa," says Jamie. "Kikkoman brews 200,000 gallons a day in the United States alone."

At least Bluegrass has heritage on its side. Nguyen notes that Japanese food has generally escaped the must-be-cheap mind-set. Red Boat's Southeast Asian fish sauce, on the other hand, faces a tougher battle.

Based on Red Boat's manufacturing process, its fish sauces are hardly overpriced. The company estimates that five pounds of anchovies go into each bottle of 40N (sauces are rated by N, indicating the amount of nitrogen; higher numbers mean less water), and the fish must be aged for 12 to 14 months before being pressed, labeled, packed, and shipped. In addition, Red Boat is made n Phu Quoc, a Vietnamese island archipelago well known for its high-quality anchovy population.

Consider that a 100-milliliter bottle of garum colatura, a similarly made Italian fish sauce, is $16 at Zingerman's. That'd be $80 for a bottle the size of Red Boat. Is an Italian name really worth that much?

Image source: Flickr member Cloudywind under Creative Commons

ALLFood Media
POST A COMMENT |14 Comments

COMMENT

  • verily: that was pretty much Andrea Nguyen's advice on picking Asian brands when you're otherwise clueless. Pick the medium-priced one. Ha!

  • Yes I read the article
    Yes I know this has nothing to do with it (Cost of Red Boat fish sauce)

    The three most expensive meals I have ever eaten were in Asian restaurants. The made the French Laundry, Gordon Ramsey's, and plaza Athenee look cheap in comparison.

    From my experience I usually expect good Asian places to be VERY expensive.

  • When I walk into the local massive Asian supermarket, they typically have 10-15 different brands on the shelves for their sauces and the prices vary widely from scarily cheap to scarily expensive. Since I usually have no clue about what's great and what's not, I just reach for the mid-priced bottle or the most recognizable brand and hope for the best.

    I do actually need to restock fish sauce...+READ

    When I walk into the local massive Asian supermarket, they typically have 10-15 different brands on the shelves for their sauces and the prices vary widely from scarily cheap to scarily expensive. Since I usually have no clue about what's great and what's not, I just reach for the mid-priced bottle or the most recognizable brand and hope for the best.

    I do actually need to restock fish sauce in my pantry. Maybe I'll give the Red Boat a try since I was using Thai Kitchen previously.-COLLAPSE

  • Who says that the cheaper fish sauce can't be an artisinal product either despite the lower cost?

    In Vietnam, you've got lower living standards and lower labor costs and less regulations than a country like Italy. Thus, its possible to produce a similar quality product at a much lower cost than something that came from Italy. What we might regard as cheap as $3 for fish sauce will seem a lot...+READ

    Who says that the cheaper fish sauce can't be an artisinal product either despite the lower cost?

    In Vietnam, you've got lower living standards and lower labor costs and less regulations than a country like Italy. Thus, its possible to produce a similar quality product at a much lower cost than something that came from Italy. What we might regard as cheap as $3 for fish sauce will seem a lot more expensive to somebody living in Vietnam.(From the price of Red Boat, its obvious that its targeted at consumers in America than in Vietnam).

    I wouldn't be surprised if there are other great fish sauces that are cheaper than Red Boat, but they haven't mastered the social media and PR game like Red Boat has.-COLLAPSE

  • What basis does the author have to write, "Food that cheap could only exist in a system where people worked illegally... conditions that still exist today"?

    It seems a bit reckless to imply that if the Chinese are doing something, then it must be illegal.

    If she's referring to illegal or undocumented workers in a Chinese kitchen, then that's true for the rest of the restaurant industry. In...+READ

    What basis does the author have to write, "Food that cheap could only exist in a system where people worked illegally... conditions that still exist today"?

    It seems a bit reckless to imply that if the Chinese are doing something, then it must be illegal.

    If she's referring to illegal or undocumented workers in a Chinese kitchen, then that's true for the rest of the restaurant industry. In fact, these days, go behind a Chinese restaurant and you'll likely see Mexicans in the kitchen.-COLLAPSE

  • I would like to see a comparison between the Red Boat sauces and the $3.00 fish sauces down at the local asian supermarket. I would bet that the processing is lot different. The same thing you would see between chemical-soy sauce & artisanal shoyu or tamari. You get the quality you pay for, pay cheap you get garbage (sometimes unhealthily so, carcinogens from HVP), pay high and you usually get a...+READ

    I would like to see a comparison between the Red Boat sauces and the $3.00 fish sauces down at the local asian supermarket. I would bet that the processing is lot different. The same thing you would see between chemical-soy sauce & artisanal shoyu or tamari. You get the quality you pay for, pay cheap you get garbage (sometimes unhealthily so, carcinogens from HVP), pay high and you usually get a far higher quality product.-COLLAPSE

  • Chinese food in america tends to be a joke. Even here in Malaysia, our chinese food is pretty fantastic. Although it's not exactly from mainland china either: ironically chicken rice can rarely be found in China, and seafood restaurants here tend to be more malaysianised- but I put the food they serve on par with a high end restaurant. Sure, it may lack the class that some people desire with fine...+READ

    Chinese food in america tends to be a joke. Even here in Malaysia, our chinese food is pretty fantastic. Although it's not exactly from mainland china either: ironically chicken rice can rarely be found in China, and seafood restaurants here tend to be more malaysianised- but I put the food they serve on par with a high end restaurant. Sure, it may lack the class that some people desire with fine dining, but the flavours are fantastic.-COLLAPSE

  • I agree with Captainspirou. If you look closer, you'll find Asian ingredients and restaurants that could very easily break the bank. The fact that some Asian-American company caught on to the "premium" or "artisan" concept should not be news, especially to people who travel and eat extensively throughout the East.

  • This article seems to be pigeonholing only Vietnamese products as 'Asian'. There's tons of expensive ingredients in Asian cooking. In fact the most expensive items are usually Asian. What about shark fin or bird's nest? Japan is basically known for everything being super expensive. They sell a densuke watermelons for $200 at markets and up to $6000 at auction. I'm sure the author knows that the...+READ

    This article seems to be pigeonholing only Vietnamese products as 'Asian'. There's tons of expensive ingredients in Asian cooking. In fact the most expensive items are usually Asian. What about shark fin or bird's nest? Japan is basically known for everything being super expensive. They sell a densuke watermelons for $200 at markets and up to $6000 at auction. I'm sure the author knows that the most expensive beef in the world is wagyu or kobe beef that easily goes for $200/lb. Even in Vietnam they have expensive ingredients like the civet coffee which is known as the most expensive coffee in the world. Or Ca Cuong which is the most expensive condiment in the world at $1 per DROP!

    The article is making far reaching assumptions just based on one guys opinion on a certain brand of fish sauce.-COLLAPSE

  • I'mm a total convert/ fan of Red Boat. As a Vietnamese person, I use fish sauce very liberally and often and this brand is BY far superior in taste. I also like the back story of the fabulous and famous "growing area" for the fish used, small batch processing, aging, etc. All of these things cost money and I am more than happy to pay for it. In fact the mark up of Red Boat vs. standard fish...+READ

    I'mm a total convert/ fan of Red Boat. As a Vietnamese person, I use fish sauce very liberally and often and this brand is BY far superior in taste. I also like the back story of the fabulous and famous "growing area" for the fish used, small batch processing, aging, etc. All of these things cost money and I am more than happy to pay for it. In fact the mark up of Red Boat vs. standard fish sauces is quite small considering the significant taste difference. The bottles I purchased were (I got the 40N and 35N) definitely under $15 for both maybe even under $10 for both. That was the main reason I bought both - it was not that expensive. That's much less than any extra virgin olive oil I purchase and use as frequently. So I definitely feel that I'm still getting a deal for such a high quality product.

    Also, Vietnamese style fish sauce is different than Thai style. And fish sauces are often made from different seafood (squid, crab, etc) that affect the taste - it's personal preference. I personally if other fish sauces eventually become as high quality and nuanced as Red Boat I would be happy to have different bottles made from different seafoods in my fridge for various applications! Bottom line is that not all fish sauces are created equal.-COLLAPSE

  • Dongcluong: Thanks for letting us know! It looks like I'm going to have to try to track down a bottle.

  • Out of all the fish sauce brands I tasted, Red Boat Fish Sauce is easily the best in taste and quality. Although it has a premium cost, you get what you pay for. The sauce easily beats all other sauce brands in the asian market like the one in VietNam and even in the U.S.A

  • I would have no objection paying for quality Asian ingredients if it is worth it. In the case of this particular fish sauce, if it tastes no better than the mainstream cheap brands, why bother paying the premium? These name brands are widely used in Thailand and are thus quite authentic themselves.

    I'm a Thai food junkie, and one of the appeals is that it doesn't cost an exorbitant amount of...+READ

    I would have no objection paying for quality Asian ingredients if it is worth it. In the case of this particular fish sauce, if it tastes no better than the mainstream cheap brands, why bother paying the premium? These name brands are widely used in Thailand and are thus quite authentic themselves.

    I'm a Thai food junkie, and one of the appeals is that it doesn't cost an exorbitant amount of either time or money to put together an absolutely stunning meal.-COLLAPSE

  • I have the opposite reaction and feel weirded out by too cheap ingredients.