Pronounced /nook mam/.
A Vietnamese/Thai sauce. Commonly called "fish sauce". Prepared by collecting the juice produced by fermenting layered salted anchovies. Smells a lot like butt. Strangely, this sauce is wonderful in cuisine. The addition of sour and sugary flavors brings out a quality in nuoc mam that is unique and unparalleled. It's incredible tasting. I believe that nuoc mam serves the same purpose in food that nasty-smelling things like cadaverene and t-butyl mercaptan serve in perfume. Perfumes are commonly formulated with a small proportion of such foul-smelling compounds because their presence modulates the smell receptors, making other compounds smells' intensify or change. Nuoc mam seems to do this for food, especially (for me), the flavors of pork, lettuce, carrot, and pickled daikon.