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Fish and seafood from Myanmar

Yegyo ngapi (salted fish)

Yegyo ngapi is a traditional and popular salted fish of Myanmar. In a study of samples bought in a Yangon market, most of the salt-tolerant isolates were the halophilic lactic acid bacterium Tetragenococcus muriaticus, and strictly anaerobic bacteria such as Clostridium and Halanaerobium were also found often.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Yegyo ngapi itself. Its own sources do not record how it is made, so the steps and scenes below are those of Damin ngapi, the closest documented fish and seafood ferment, shown as a guide to the method, not as a record of Yegyo ngapi.

Short entryFish and seafood

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedWhat goes in, as the sources describe it.
Fish[kobayashi2016]
Salt[kobayashi2016]

Total time across the steps of Damin ngapi: 3.5 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: mixed small fish trapped as the paddy fields drain

Step 1 of 6 · steps of Damin ngapi
Trap small fish in the paddies at the end of the rains
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
T. muriaticus

Lower Burmese farmers set traps in late October and November, when the flooded fields drain back to the rivers. Output: mixed small paddy fish.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Yegyo ngapi is a traditional and popular salted fish of Myanmar. In a study of samples bought in a Yangon market, most of the salt-tolerant isolates were the halophilic lactic acid bacterium Tetragenococcus muriaticus, and strictly anaerobic bacteria such as Clostridium and Halanaerobium were also found often. Tetragenococcus muriaticus and Halanaerobium do most of the fermenting.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Farm sun-dried pounded type and large-fish yegyo (Ishige and Ruddle 1987)Earlier rounds recorded a Rangoon-area farm method of sun-drying and repeated pounding with salt, and a large-fish yegyo, from Ishige and Ruddle 1987; not re-checked in 2026-10.

Safety

Kobayashi et al. found DNA sequences similar to Clostridium botulinum in Yangon market yegyo ngapi and call for closer surveillance, although no botulism had been reported from the region where the samples were taken.

Hazards the sources name: Clostridium, including DNA sequences similar to Clostridium botulinum.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

  1. [kobayashi2016] Kobayashi T., Taguchi C., Kida K. et al. 2016, Diversity of the bacterial community in Myanmar traditional salted fish yegyo ngapi, World J. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 32(10):166, doi:10.1007/s11274-016-2127-z (abstract)paper
  2. [ishige1987] Ishige N. and Ruddle K. 1987, Gyosyo in Southeast Asia, a study of fermented aquatic products (5), Bull. Natl. Mus. Ethnol. 12(2), pp. 277–279 (cited by an earlier round; not opened in 2026-10)other