The Home Cooking Option in the Countryside

In my weeks living in the Thai countryside, I've found that in order to survive, you make do with what is available.  Sit down restaurant meals are almost unheard of here, as I'm nearly 30 minutes from the nearest sizable town.  However, this doesn't mean that there are a lack of choices.  There are plenty of enterprising villagers who set up food carts selling what they make best. There is one caveat here and of course and that is as long as you like Thai food, you'll have plenty of choices. 

Since I happen to enjoy Thai food, it hasn't been a problem for me to quickly adapt to the tastes and smells of Thai food.  Having been brought up in an environment where American food, meshed well with Chinese food, I was already used to the most pungent types of condiments Chinese or Thai food had to offer.  One thing that I have learned is that many farmers have their roots in Issan, which is a region in the Northeastern part of Thailand. Many still enjoy putting anchovies or anchovy paste into their foods, whether the food is a meat or a vegetable dish.  Therefore, as I'm coming across dishes with this aroma, I can easily identify it as Issan.

In another aspect of food, enterprising villagers set up food carts or food stalls on the sides of roads and also in front of their homes.  Most food vendors are excellent here and since these vendors are serving food to their neighbors - this is a village after all - they wouldn't want to poison them.  Generally, I've found the hygiene to be acceptable at most places.  The kind of food you would find here is what you would find in Bangkok, only in a smaller subset. For example, grilled meatballs, hot dogs, chicken, pork are universally good and most are served with a sweet chili sauce glaze.  I've found carts that sell roti, which is basically a small ball of dough that that flattened out on a hot plate.  It could be made sweet or savory. Fillings could be egg, sweetened condensed milk or Nutella and an assortment of jams, just like your favorite creperie! One of my favorite foods here in the village are noodles. You will usually get a nice dark broth made with ox bones. Once I had a broth that was very dark and I suspect that it may have contained pig blood. In any case, the noodles offered here are thin white rice noodles, flat white noodles (see ew), clear mung bean noodles (woon sen) and thin yellow egg noodles.  All were good quality and very similar to the Chinese varieties you would find in New York. 

Finally, I might add that I did not find "pad thai" in the village, except in Bangkok street carts and in some restaurants.  I came across an interesting story that said that the origins of Pad Thai were Chinese and that sometime in the late 1940's there was a competition to create "genuine" Thai dishes during a spate of nationalism at the time.  Apparently, Chinese laborers ate and sold lot's of stir-fried noodles to the the local ethnic Chinese and Thais, so someone apparently, changed some of the ingredients, if I remember correctly, adding fish sauce, peanuts and sprouts to make it more "Thai".  I don't know the validity of this story, but maybe some of my readers can confirm this.

In addition to prepared food, I had also had the privilege to try all sorts of home cooking.  Let's say that the condiments that we buy here that are manufactured by huge conglomerates taste much different than the ones that are made locally.  For example, people here make their red curries, etc, by hand, grinding chilies, garlic and other ingredients using huge mortar and pestles.  They break it apart and sell it to others or keep in handy at home to make curries.  These curries, chili oils, etc, are kept for weeks without refrigeration.  They are very tasty as crushing food imparts a richer flavor. As for other condiments, they tend to used Thai versions of light and dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, cooking oil and chili sauces.

My favorite story is the day when my wife made a squid curry dish.  She had no idea that the curry she had purchased from a neighbor was extremely hot and liberally added the red curry paste to the frying pan. I took some bites and felt that it was hot, but nothing I couldn't manage.  I had three helpings that night.  At first I thought that burning lips weren't so bad, but later, I felt that my GI tract was completely on fire! I could barely get a wink of sleep that night, so I've learned my lesson. I am no Adam Richman from "Man vs. Food."

In another observation, I noticed that Thai food is actually very protein and starch heavy.  In the area of fruits and vegetables, fruit variety is definitely the winner, with so many choices ranging from mangos, to dragonfruit to mangosteen. I even had some fruit I've never had, like this plum that had a really thin skin.  I tried rambutan and durian. The durian wasn't as stinky as people say they are. Perhaps I got the newly genetically engineered variety?  Anyhow, it was surprisingly pleasant. As for vegetables, the closest I got to substantial vegetable eating was the kailan, which is a local broccoli.  Other veggie fillers are many different types of basil, morning glory and Thai eggplant, which is small and green in color.  When I get to Hong Kong, you can bet that I'll be ordering plates of choy sum!

Finally, for those of you who are bizarre food lovers, I was offered two grilled rats on a stick.  Since the rats are "field rats" they are supposedly okay to eat since they are vermin free. This is where I drew a line and didn't partake and surprisingly, none of the others around me seemed eager to try!  The interesting part of this is that it did smell really good as it was butterflied and marinate in soy.  I was tempted but didn't.  What a wimp!  In my second bizarre food episode, we had a thunderstorm which dumped a huge amount of rain on the village.  On the following day, all kinds of critters came out, including insects that feasted on rice, lizards, mini-iguana looking reptiles and various toads.  The villagers were having a field day. During nightfall, many went out in their motorcycles catching large toads and other animals that came out for water.  Many offered to sell us some for food. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to try any of these, but maybe in the future, I'll be brave enough to ask. 

In conclusion, many people here are enterprising and eat what is available to them. I almost forgot to mention that many people here make mango "fruit roll ups" dried in the sun and pick tamarind leafs right off of trees to season their food. This shows how close people are to their food - there are mango trees everywhere - and I am now learning that the fewer people there are between the source of your food and your mouth, the better tasting and presumably, healthier it is for you!

Three Days in Bangkok

Before departing for Bangkok, I kept one eye on the unfolding events in Thailand and another eye on what I would do when I actually got there.  To start off my trip, I figured I would need three days in Bangkok to get my bearings straight and to fight off some of my jet lag.  Having been to Asia several times in the last decade, I knew that I would hit a 3 day jet lag wall, when my body would just give out.  I guess I could equate the experience to drug addiction withdrawal symptoms. I handled "the wall" surprisingly well with the exception of one day, when I needed assistance of a cup of Starbucks coffee.

During my first night in Bangkok, my wife and I decided to visit an old university friend of mine in Bangkok. Right before my visit, I was hitting the proverbial jet lag wall and went into a Starbucks.  I ordered a "Cafe Americano" hoping that it tasted the same as regular brewed coffee at an American Starbucks.  I was satisfied with the quality and happy with the taste which was very similar to what I am used to.  The difference was only in the preparation: the barista pulled two shots of espresso into a shot glass before adding hot water to the mug.  There was also one unexpected event in ordering: no, it wasn't the language barrier, but it was the different sizing system they use here in Bangkok.  Tall, Grande, and Venti sizes weren't used, however, the sizing system here is Short, Tall, and Grande.  I ordered the Grande thinking it was medium. I ended up getting  a huge mug of coffee, which in the end wasn't so bad as it carried me through the events of the night.

When we made reservations for a Bangkok hotel in January, my wife and I decided that we wanted to be in an area of Bangkok, we have never lived in, thus we chose Khaosan Road, which is the "backpackers paradise" in Thailand.  Khaosan Road was easy to spot, not because of the backpackers, but because the street was lined with tiny Thai flags strung across the entire length of the street.  We did walk past backpackers with gigantic backpacks, but surprisingly, the tourists here seemed well-heeled and civilized.  Most were couples and families and there were very few single travelers.

The street food scene was excellent, as it had been in most of the other parts of Thailand I'd been to. The street food scene starts up on Khaosan road at sundown with carts constantly streaming in and out of the center of the road.  On the sidewalks are the permanent businesses, cheap guest houses, internet cafes, and tourist trinket shops. Here you could find every type of street food and since these foods are fast food, they are usually grilled, fried or stir-fried.  It is not a place for those on a diet.  The healthiest thing I found here are the fruit stands, but I heard from the grapevine that many of these fruits are non-organic, meaning that farmers here use plenty of pesticides and chemicals that promote growth.  I didn't let that small detail stop me and I did indulge in mango, watermelon and papaya.  Unfortunately, mangosteen season is not here yet, so I'll have to wait.  For the record, mangos come in two varieties, sweet orange and hard sour/sweet varieties.  Both are excellent this time of year. Watermelons are not as juicy as they are in the States but passable.  Some are as small as softballs and the biggest ones are as big as basketballs.  As for papayas, they are as juicy and sweet as ever, which beats anything you can find at a New York green grocer. 

In later posts, I will describe some of the food I tried in Thailand. I do not know the actual names in Thai for all the foods, but I will do my best to describe them accurately.  There is a world of food out there and now that I have left  Bangkok, I am learning that food culture is driven by how people live and how people try to use what is available to them to survive.  For the record, I am now living in a farming community in central Thailand and living here is a total 180 degree turn from anything I have ever experienced.  My trip is not a vacation but in a way, living the life as a local.  Having a strong stomach helps too!