Food Glorious Food

The cuisine of Thailand, refined and elegant, has been compared to that of France and China, both countries renowned for their cooking. All three countries were ruled for centuries by absolute monarchs, who lived in great splendor in highly-organized courts, accompanied by very large numbers of courtiers, ladies-in-waiting, attendants of all sorts, who had good taste and plenty of leisure in which to bring the culinary arts to a very high degree of development.

It has been suggested that Thai cuisine is derived from the Indian, or the Chinese or even the Malay, but in fact although it has elements of all of these, it is uniquely itself, and is instantly recognizable as "Thai food" wherever it is correctly prepared. It is an Asian cuisine, based - as is all south Asian food - upon the cultivation and use of rice.

The cooking and serving of Thai food involves not only the food itself, but also its esthetic appeal: the food must not only taste very good (and each particular dish has a "correct" taste) but it must also LOOK beautiful. Even food cheaply prepared is not just plopped onto a plate, but is arranged in an attractive and tasteful way. The carving and fruits and vegetables, to decorate prepared foods, has therefore developed in Thailand into a very fine art. The best place to see this in all its splendor would be, of course, the Royal Kitchens, but as this is quite impossible, a visit to nearly any five-star hotel will show the visitor its resident fruit-and-vegetable carver at work. This is an art particular to Thailand, and is well worth trying to see.

Thai food is supposed to consist of more than one taste, and these are defined as: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, hot and "mun" -- the last referring to the hard-to-describe taste of things like oil and nuts. A combination of one or more of these flavors is required for nearly all food (except for sweets, which are ALWAYS VERY sweet indeed), and if one taste overpowers the others then the food is considered badly prepared. Most Thai people are VERY knowledgeable about the proper taste of any dish.

The taste of sweet was, until recently, derived only from palm sugar, cane sugar and its derivative refined white sugar having come to Thailand only recently. This palm sugar is sold in all fresh food markets and appears as slabs of pale brown paste.

The taste of salt comes from the use of "nam pla", or fish sauce. This, under another name, is also used throughout Vietnam, and during the time of the Roman Empire was produced and used in exactly the same way, and was called "garum" Nam pla is produced by packing quantities of fish into a large container and leaving it to ferment for a long time. The liquid, which seeps out of this fish mixture, is then poured off and used to season foods. People who have never been exposed to the smell of nam pla can find it very offensive, as it has a pronounced sour fishy odor. When used in cooked foods, however, it only gives the dish a salty flavor.

The hotness of Thai food is legendary: some sources claim it is the hottest food eaten by any people. A very large variety of peppers are grown in Thailand, one of which "prik kee noo", a very small pepper, is one of the hottest known, aside from the Mexican habanera.

The best known dish people eat in Thailand is called "gaeng", and is analogous to the Indian curry, and there are many varieties. The yellow curry powder sold in supermarkets is only occasionally used is one of these -- "gaeng matsaman" -- a dish which is universally believed to be of Islam origin, probably from Malaysia.

Gaeng is prepared starting with a paste, a mixture of various herbs and spices -- each gaeng has its own mixture -- which are put into a mortar and pounded until the proper pasty consistency is reached. In the very recent past, when Thailand was still primarily an agricultural country, the very first sound one would hear in any village, would be the pounding of the mortar and pestle, wielded by just about every housewife, well before dawn, as she prepared the gaeng paste for the day's meals. There being no electricity or refrigeration in those days, it was the peppers in the paste, which prevented spoilage.

To prepare a gaeng, the paste is first prepared, and then a small amount is cooked in a wok until it melts down and becomes fragrant; coconut cream (kati - this is NOT the water inside the coconut but is derived from the white flesh, grated and squeezed to release the cream - BEWARE that kati has the highest amount of cholesterol of ANY food!!) ) is added, and then the ingredients the diner wishes to have are added: beef, chicken, pork, fish or only vegetables. Gaeng is ALWAYS served with rice.

Other well known and popular foods are "tom yom" - a kind of sweet-sour soup made with lemon grass - and guaytiew, or rice noodles, which is eaten by everyone and is sold throughout the day until late at night at street stalls everywhere.

There are a number of differences in the foods served and eaten in various parts of the country. In the Northeast, known as "Isaarn", people eat mostly glutinous rice, and they also maintain the old custom of eating with their fingers, rolling a ball of this rice between the fingers and then dipping it into the dish of the day.

People who have eaten Thai food in restaurants in Western countries may notice two differences: the Thai food they eat abroad is nearly always "toned down" for the Western consumer, that is, the amount of hot peppers is reduced so that the diner doesn't find his mouth burning, and secondly, the amount of meat or chicken in any dish is always MORE THAN he would find in a similar dish made in Thailand itself. Thai people were never great consumers of meat or chicken; in the very recent past most people ate this only on special occasions, although nearly everybody consumed fish of some kind, if only in the form of dried shrimp, which is sold everywhere in many forms. Even today, Thai people, perhaps because of their Buddhist religion, believe it is "better" - purer and more spiritual, to eat a vegetarian diet, though not many stick to this regime nowadays.

For those travelers who suffer from "Chinese restaurant syndrome", where the mouth and face become numb after consuming a Chinese meal, it is good to know that these days Thais put monosodium glutamate automatically into MOST dishes. This is sold by a Japanese company, the brand is called Aginomoto, and in the Thai language it is called "pong chu rote". A careful diner will tell the waiter "yah sai pong chu rote" -- "don't put monosodium glutamate into my food" if he has this problem.

It is difficult to purchase a bad meal in Thailand, even from street stalls. In fact, whilst it may APPEAR that the foods sold in the street are not very clean, the customer can SEE his food being prepared right in front of him, and can therefore judge the cleanliness of what he is about to consume for himself, something which cannot be done when food is prepared in a hidden kitchen. Since most poorer people DO buy their foods from street vendors, and they earn so little that every baht has to count, they are VERY particular about the taste of their food, and a vendor who sells a bad-tasting gaeng or plate of guaytiew will be out of business very quickly.

Bon Appetit!

For some up to the minute Thai Food Recipes: www.groovymap.com/dining.html

There will be an opportunity to witness a creative combination of cooking and competing at the first Salon Culinaire Bangkok, Thursday September 28 through Saturday October 1 as part of the Asian Food and Catering Fair. As of last count there were some 200 entrants in the various Chef's Association of Thailand-organized Salon Culinaire competitions -- ice-carving, cooking and baking (bread, desserts, appetizers) -- plus bartending courtesy of the Food & Beverage Association (Saturday) and floral arrangements by some similarly important trade troupes (Wednesday). In addition to demonstrations by visiting chefs, of particular interest will be the "New Zealand-New Asia-New Cuisine" cook-off, with individual chefs responsible for creating a main course "fusion" dish (for four) in under an hour under the watchful eyes of judges and spectators, and the "Mystery Net" competition, consisting of teams of four designing a three-course meal (for 20) -- from a "mystery net" of ingredients which will be unveiled in advance (Wednesday September 27th at 3 p.m) -- and then preparing it to present to the panel of international judges. The New Asia contest will be held Thursday September 28th and Friday September 29th from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.; the Mystery Net competition is divided into three rounds, held Thursday through Saturday October 1st from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission to the AFCF is 100 baht.