Back when I was serving in the US Army, I lived in an apartment with my roommate Tony, a Native American who eventually became one of my closest friends. One day, after years of craving Filipino food, I finally asked my parents back home in Chicago to send me a care package filled with the good stuff, and there it was: dried fish.

I was over the moon. After decades away from home, that little plastic pack felt like a ticket back to my childhood mornings in Capiz, Philippines. I proudly showed it to Tony and said, “This, my friend, is a Filipino delicacy. You got to try it.” He nodded politely, probably thinking it was some kind of fancy seafood jerky.

That night, I set up the kitchen like a man on a mission. I heated the pan, added oil, and carefully laid the dried fish down like it was gold. Then it happened. The smell hit me, strong, smoky, salty, and, well, nostalgic.

Minutes later, Tony walked in, sniffed the air, and yelled, “What the hell is that smell? Are you cooking garbage?”

I froze. That was my “aha” moment. What I thought was home suddenly smelled like something out of a horror movie to him. I tried explaining that this is how it’s supposed to smell. In Filipino culture, that strong odor isn’t a flaw, it’s part of the experience. The smell of dried fish at breakfast is like background music in every Filipino home. But to Tony, it was biological warfare.

By midnight, I gave up. I threw away the cooked fish and ordered McDonald’s instead. The smell, however, stayed. It crawled into our curtains, our sofa, our pillows, even the microwave seemed to remember it. My parents, being old-school, told me to boil soap to fight the odor. I did. The apartment smelled like a bizarre mix of detergent and “daing” for weeks. Tony barely left his room. I ended up taking down all the curtains and getting them washed, feeling both homesick and guilty.

Fast forward many years later, that unforgettable experience turned into something meaningful. Through Banica Seafood and with the help of DOST’s food research, we discovered that the infamous dried fish odor isn’t just about culture. It comes from high bacterial content during traditional drying. That same bacteria also triggers allergies and reduces product quality.