Ode to Rotting Fish

I served in the Peace Corps in Isaan (Northeast Thailand) during the late '80s and fell in love with the food, especially the village fare. A common dish served with sticky rice is a salad made mostly from green papaya, peppers, and chunky fish sauce. This is not the odoriferous liquid many of you may be aware of, but the excessively fragrant/pungent/offensive semisolid primordial fish ooze used when the wimpy watery stuff just won't do. Think of Coors Light vs. a stout. One whiff grows hair where manly men want hair to grow. The problem is finding some of the real stuff outside of Isaan. Even in Thailand, one may have to search for it. It is, therefore, understanding that I took the opportunity to travel to Chiang Mai in 2005 to attend a chemistry conference with my former research advisor. We arrived at the conference hotel and ventured into the attached shopping mall in search of some gob khow, aka food. I was confident I could find sticky rice in the North, but knew dom bahk hung was pure fantasy, especially in a fancy mall. Only an idiot would allow that stench in a confined space. Then I smelled it! Ahhh, the pungent odor of pla daek. Then I saw the sign proclaiming som tom Lao. I was happier than a $1,000,000 grant winning professors kid at Christmas. I ordered a plate of sticky rice with the concoction complete with the chunky rotting fish sauce. Grinning from ear to ear, I sat across the table from the professor where I could bless him with the odor of rotting fish, and commenced noshing on some truly fine eats. He asked what the odor was. I told him. He asked if I was really going to eat rotten fish. I told him. He was both offended and impressed. I was happy - I had sticky rice and som tom Lao. I was alive and my hair was no longer thinning.