Gategaeo ‘Gate’ Itkonen worked for over three years as a reporter for two English-language newspapers in Thailand, the Phuket Gazette and Phuket Post. She is married with one son.

One day when my husband came home from work, he started looking round for something. I somehow knew what he was looking for but I waited to let him find it by himself.

Like a cartoon cat he followed his sense of smell, walking directly to the kitchen and opening the cupboards where I store food ingredients. There he found a small plastic container filled with shrimp paste, a standard Thai cooking ingredient made from fermented ground shrimp. Unknown to the vast majority of Finns, spicy-shrimp paste produces a strong odour that might be considered unappetising for people who are not from South-East Asia.

Once detected, the little cup of shrimp paste that I had bought the day before was immediately cast onto the balcony. But it had already caused some problems for our apartment that I hadn’t foreseen.

As my husband was quick to point out, the smell of shrimp paste had permeated out of its little plastic container and into our blankets, sofa, curtains and clothes. It was as if the entire apartment had taken on the aroma of a shrimp paste factory.

I started to worry. If he could detect the smell before even opening the apartment door, then how would the neighbours react? Then I remembered reports of an incident in London in 2007 when police and emergency response units responded to reports of a chemical attack. The entire neighborhood was evacuated in what turned out to be the handiwork of a cook in a Thai restaurant preparing chilli sauce.

But it was not just my husband who found the new odour of our living space terrifying. There were no lack of comments from visitors who tried to describe it. Some said it smells like fish food, while others said it more closely resembled stinky feet. Others said it just simply smelt like something rotten.

The only real understanding I got was from a Thai friend who said that she had experienced similar problems after getting some homemade fermented fish sauce sent by a Thai friend through the post.

The receiver was told in no uncertain terms by the well-intended worker at the Finnish post office that the package was assumed to contain food items that had gone off long ago. Of course she took it back home trying to hide a smile, knowing full well how tasty dinner would be that evening.

Eating is a really big deal for all Thais. It is part of our culture. We commonly greet each other by asking the question, “Have you eaten?”

Many of you who have tried Thai food have perhaps already tasted shrimp paste without knowing it. It is an important ingredient in many Thai dishes. Without it the taste just isn’t the same.

On my vacations to Thailand I carry an empty suitcase to cram full with local food ingredients to cook back in Finland – and there are no better ‘souvenirs’ to bring back to my Thai friends living here.

I think I have been quite successful in getting Finnish friends to enjoy eating shrimp paste and ignoring its rather distinctive smell. But it is a two-way street. They have also had success teaching me to enjoy eating salmiakki, that tongue-numbing salty liquorice that contains ammonium chloride. Maybe I’ll bring some of that back to Thailand with me on my next trip…