Something Fishy

In an effort to be a good, encouraging mother, I indulged Anna's interest in international cuisine the other night. She checked out a cookbook from her school library and read every page, ultimately choosing three recipes to try. We had the first one, Vietnamese Lettuce Wraps, on Monday night. Really, the recipe was very simple and lacked a lot of seasoning. I was thinking that they would taste more like P.F. Chang's (which the girls have never tasted because there isn't one within 150 miles of us) and that everyone would love it. I think Anna and I had the same vision because she was hopping around asking when it would be ready and could she please cut the chicken with the sharp knife. I'm all for having the kids help in the kitchen, but when a child is jumping around asking to use implements that could easily be read as weapons or, at best, accidents, it's an obvious NO.

All the wraps assembled, it was time to make the sauce. The first and main ingredient was fish sauce. I have bought and used oyster sauce in Asian cooking before and was expecting something similar. Oh, no. Fish sauce is watery and clear and looks a little sinister, maybe. It contained only three ingredients: fish juice (should have been my first warning), salt, and sugar. I always smell new ingredients after I open them. Things like fresh nutmeg, vanilla, and coriander make me feel inspired and intrepid. Fish sauce made me gag a little. That's a new reaction. When Anna asked to smell it, I didn't let her. My hope was that once the other ingredients were added to the sauce, it would smell less like frog food and marinated stinky feet. I worried that if she smelled only the foul ingredient, she wouldn't eat the finished product.

I proceeded to add sugar, garlic (lots of garlic), water, and a little vinegar, which wasn't listed in the book, but I was grasping at straws to make the smell go away. I couldn't even make myself taste the sauce, a culinary necessity. Usually, I never put something on the table without tasting it first. But this didn't feel culinary at all. It felt more like a scene from Harry Potter's Potions class than dinner prep. At that point, Lucy came running in screaming. When I asked what was wrong, she yelled, "What is that smell?" and stuck fingers up both nostrils, tears welling. Truth be told, I wanted to do the same thing. The smell was spreading to the family room and the living room. I couldn't contain it.

Hoping for the best, I dished up the sauce and said a silent prayer. Kelly came home just then and sat down for dinner. Bravely, he and I dunked our wraps in the sauce just once. That's all we could handle. He immediately went into flashbacks of a Cambodian mission companion who used fish sauce regularly and smelled like it all the time. Lucy was trying to eat with fingers up her nose, Lizzie staged a silent protest, and Anna just ate the plain lettuce, chicken, carrots, and rice noodles with a disappointed look on her face. Daisy cried a little. It was one of the worst disasters I have ever cooked up.

Later that night, Anna said quietly, "Mom, would you mind if we canceled Tandoori Chicken [scheduled for later in the week]? I think I'll just take the book back." My initial reaction was to tell her that maybe she would like Indian food better than Vietnamese, but I still felt the remnants of fish sauce on my breath, so I put the book in her backpack myself.

The flourless chocolate cake recipe did turn out pretty well. The girls were thrilled to be able to eat something that night. And the lingering fish sauce stench was masked by the smell of rich, dark chocolate.