Smell: the nose knows

Hong Kong is full of evocative smells that imprint themselves on your mind as testament to your time here.  Below, veteran Tai O shrimp paste maker Cheng Kai-keung offers insight into one of the signature scents of Hong Kong’s ancient fishing villages, while the hiking routes that follow take you to these villages. Meander the markets and food stalls, and allow the smells to drift over you.

Veteran Tai O shrimp paste maker Cheng Kai-keung claims that he can smell when his famed condiment is ready for bottling.

Lantau Island is the green and rural counterpoint to the urban expanse of Hong Kong. With its stretches of sandy beach and kilometre high peaks, it remains largely unspoiled.

On a clear day, you can see Macao from Tai O, a traditional village with stilt houses in western Lantau. Yet Tai O’s farming and fishing way of life has remained much the same since its first settlers made it home more than three centuries ago.

Founded in 1920, Cheng Cheung Hing Shrimp Paste Factory’s proprietor Cheng Kai-keung hails from ancestors who have lived in Tai O for more than 160 years. Cheng is his family’s fourth generation of shrimp paste makers. He apprenticed in the authentic food processing trade under his father after working as a fisherman in Asia and the Middle East. “I came home to help with the family business after unrest began in the Middle East,” he explains.

Shrimp paste is Tai O’s most famous culinary export, though it is a remarkably simple product. “We only use shrimp and salt,” Cheng reveals. “For shrimp paste, in the past we used a ratio of 100 parts shrimp to 17 parts salt, but more recently we have reduced the salt to 13 parts as people are more health conscious nowadays. For shrimp blocks, we use 100 to seven. The months between May and October are the best time for shrimp paste, and we employ several contract workers for a total of six people to take care of our 200 baskets.”

The most important aspect of making shrimp paste is exposure to sunlight and air, to transform its texture while eliminating its fishy smell. The process involves agitation of the paste every 45 minutes and spreading it thinly on wicker trays exposed to direct sunlight from early morning to early afternoon.

The stirring of the shrimp paste gives Tai O its familiar whiff of intensely briny aroma that some find delicious while others find nauseating.

“One time, a mother with her young son came by and wanted to watch me work,” Cheng recalls. “Once I began stirring, the boy immediately proclaimed that shrimp paste stinks. Though his mother reprimanded him for being naughty, I said that it was no problem for the boy to have an opinion. Shrimp paste is not for everyone. Yet shrimp paste is part of our dinning culture. It is critical to many dishes in Southern China and Southeast Asia. It is part of our heritage.”