ngapi

alternative ngapee · alternative nga-pee

1. uncountablecookingA pungent Burmese condiment made from fermented and compressed fish or shrimp paste.

   The rivers and lakes abound with fish, from which the inhabitants prepare their favourite condiment of ngapee.

   1876, "Burmah" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. IV, p. 552

   2 more examples

   Passing by Henzada, because intending to return thither, we went on to Yangdoon or Nyoungdoon, a large and thriving ports celebrated for its fishing trade. Of this fact we were soon abundantly convinced by the abominable smell of nga-pee, a kind of dried and putrid fish, of which the Burmese are particularly fond; nor by that circumstance alone, for we counted a hundred and twenty large trading vessels anchored along the bank.

   1880, J.H. Titcomb, chapter VII, in Personal Recollections of British Burma and Its Church Mission Work in 1878-79

   Travellers on the steamers of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company are wont to rail in no measured terms at the fish-paste which forms an invariable and obtrusively evident part of the cargo, yet no Burman would think a dinner complete without his modicum of nga-pee, and it is a noteworthy fact that one form of the condiment is of frequent appearance on English dinner-tables in the East, under the name of balachong, a term borrowed from the Straits Settlements, but which designates nothing more nor less than a specially prepared variety of nga-pee.

   1882, James George Scott, The Burman: His Life and Notions, Ch. xxviii: "Nga-pee"