Ah, shrimp paste! Grayish pink to muddy brown colored paste made of fermented mashed up shrimp. It looks awfully homely. And what a smell! When people are cooking with shrimp paste you can smell its distinctive smell a block away.
When my 老公 was a boy growing up in Canada, his family decided one day to cook a yummy shrimp paste dish for their dinner. The smell of their delicious stir fry was so strong and I guess so foreign that one of their neighbors took serious offense and threatened to call the police on them. Yessiree bob, that's right, almost arrested over a smell. What that surely on most other occasions friendly neighbor needed, in my opinion, was a proper dose of perspective.
For example, from my perspective, the smell of shrimp paste wafting through the air makes my stomach clutch in a sudden famish of hunger. It is a strong smell, yes, but very fragrant and full of the promise of its distinctive taste and aroma. So once your food perspective is transformed by the delicious taste memory of shrimp paste, the strong smell turns from offensive to tantalizing. You just have to give shrimp paste a fair chance.
It is interesting to note how many other fermented things, like anchovies or fermented bean curd for example, have a very strong taste and smell by themselves (because of the fermentation) but when cooked with other foods can instantly make a so-so dish spectacular. And so it is with shrimp paste.
