Abstract
This study conducted to investigate the impact of raw material freshness on the quality and hygienic safety of anchovy fish sauce and suggest the importance of raw material freshness to make high-quality and hygienic anchovy fish sauce by measuring the chemical compositions and histamine. To devide the raw material's freshness levels, raw anchovy was left for 24 hours and was sampled every 4 hour(Group I-VII). As a result, the levels of VBN(volatile basic nitrogen) and histamine increased as time passed each contents were 16.29-87.65 mg/100 g and 6.14-1499.63 mg/100 g respectively. As fish sauce fermented for 18 months, the contents of VBN were 205.31-270.51 mg/100 g and histamine were 120.54-1707.22 mg/100 g, respectively. These results means the levels of VBN and histamine of raw materials are significantly associated with the hygiene of anchovy fish sauce. To investigate the reason of different contents of histamine at each fish sauce, bacteria from each groups were isolated and identified. At group V-VII those the lowest three groups, Leconostoc mesenteroides ssp. cremoris was identified and that produced the highest content of histamine 22.88-101.69 mg/kg and the others produced histamine 3.79-20.2 mg/kg. This means that fish sauce made by low freshness materials contain bacteria have strong ability to make histamine from histidine. Therefore, the freshness of raw material influences the hygiene and safety of fish sauce, and it is most important to manage the freshness of raw material to make the high quality and hygienically safe fish sauce.