Word: vat
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Balancing atop a ladder, 72-year-old Nguyen Van Bang closes his eyes to take a deep appreciative breath. Then he plunges his hand into a vat of rotting anchovies and salt. "You see, this one is only about a week old-the fish still have their eyes and tails," he says, turning over a soupy mixture between his fingers. "But they'll all decompose soon enough, don't worry." Descending, he springs to another wooden vat and turns a valve, filling a snifter with a warm amber liquid. This is prized nuoc mam, fermented for more than a year...
...face of it, nuoc mam is rudimentary to make. Alternate layers of fish with salt, and leave them to ferment for at least four months. Drain the vat from the bottom, pour the sauce back into the vat and wait another few months. Then drain again. This first pressing, as prized as extra-virgin olive oil, is called nhi and is usually reserved for dipping bowls at the table. On Phu Quoc, they douse everything from vegetables to french fries in salty nuoc mam nhi. Second and third pressings are used for cooking...
...place serves up top-notch Dai food?dishes like beef fried with lemongrass, crispy dried sheets of riverweed and grilled snakehead fish with tamarind?as well as all the Thai standards. And if you're game, he'll pour you a generous measure of snake wine from a vat stuffed with coiled serpents and regale you with tales of his adventures...
...credit my visualization abilities with helping me understand the animals I work with. One of my early livestock design projects was to create a dip-vat and cattle-handling facility for a feed yard in Arizona. A dip vat is a long, narrow, 7-ft.-deep swimming pool through which cattle move in single file. It is filled with pesticide to rid the animals of ticks, lice and other external parasites. In 1978 dip-vat designs were very poor. The animals often panicked because they were forced into the vat down a steep, slick decline. They would refuse to jump...
...mother, one becomes something of an expert on scary disease names. Shortly after giving birth, some switch in your brain opens up a cerebral vat into which you pour the name of every horrific childhood ailment yet discovered. And they stay there, stewing and bubbling over every time your child looks the tiniest...