Most of the week I have in the back of my mind a very small secretary typing cryptic notes about what things I think people back at "the ranch" would most like to hear about. The notes she types are so much in bits and pieces that when I go back to examine them I find that some are missing, and the ones there, I will probably not have the time to cover. One that I have been meaning to talk a bit about for a while now is food. Nicole, here we go...
The food in Thailand is aroi maak (very delicious) as many of us have heard. We eat a lot of chicken, pork, shrimp, and fish dishes, and curries. Beef is pretty rare. Always with rice, unless of course you have noodles (guid tiao) then it does not make sense to eat rice (so Thais think). I have ordered almost every meal pet maak maak (very very hot) and still have yet to get burned. At first, I thought that the cooks were going easy on me because I am a farang, or because they didn't think I knew what I was asking for, but now I receive spicier dishes and at this point my opinion is that a serious pepperhead from New Mexico can roll with most of what Thailand has to offer. My friend Bruce Goddard in Albuquerque grows the hottest peppers in the world, and I have been eating them with teary eyes and a smile for years now. This brings me to one of my favorite thai quotes so far which is roughly "thais think that if it is not spicy, it is not good". We came to the right place, I could not agree more
Beyond this, Thais enjoy maximizing their flavor experience. When you order an iced coffee for example, the cup starts out with about 1/3 cup of sugar and gets healthy doses of coffee mate and condensed milk. Every bowl of pad thai comes with about a tablespoon of sugar on top. Most everything has MSG, which I was also told Thais consider a necessity of good food. I (and other asasamok) have taken to saying "mai sai pom churote" or no MSG whenever ordering at a restaurant, but Erin and I still get our fair dose at the house. The umami flavor is marketed in Thailand as a wholesome and delicious component of home cooking. MSG powders are advertised on television in a way that resembles Tide commercials. They are not the dirty little secret of the food industry they are in the states. We are still trying to figure out if that is why the veggies are so damned good!
The Thais typically cook with one wok over a large gas burner, at very high heat, outside. They crush garlic and chilies with a mortar and pestle to get a lot of things started and use fish sauce for everything. One of my favorite foods here so far is "kai taught" which is basically a deep fried "scrambled" egg that has fish sauce mixed in before cooking. For some reason the eggs are just amazing; always brown ones. It feels almost like I never really had eggs before coming here. We eat them for breakfast lunch and dinner and it doesn't bother me one bit. Although things are cooked one at a time in these woks, there are always at least 3-4 different dishes with each meal plus rice. There is no differentiation made for breakfast, lunch or dinner except thais tend to eat most in the morning. It has been work to explain to our host father that I am not sick when I leave the house after eating only 3 crackers and some fruit (sometimes I am sick:)
Things we love include nam prik, which is a sort of chile relish that there are about a million and five versions of, sticky rice and mango for breakfast, som-tom (papaya salad), deep fried bay shrimp paddies and deep fried corn paddies, most all the soups and curries and the VEGGIES. The veggies have more flavor than I can recall experiencing. Mainly chute types and cauliflower, and beans. If you taste the broth at any place you can tell that hours went into boiling the flavor of those very veggies into that water and it is a magical thing. Fruits are another subject that I do not have the time to into depth on but I will say that if wealth were judged by the flavor and variety of fruits, the US would be very poor compared to Thailand. I have never eaten or enjoyed so many fruits so often as I do here.
Things that are a little rough include fish balls and more fish balls. They all taste like fish. Fish skin, and fish skin flavored snacks like rice cakes (only time I have almost thrown up) are also the occasional curve ball. Congealed blood is served in soups, not a favorite, and intestines of animals sneak up on us some times but do not pass unnoticed. I sometimes feel like the first man to eat intestine was a total Emperor Wears No Clothes situation where somehow everyone convinced him it didn't taste like $*% because of his position. Just like in NM, lot of people like it here, maybe from pigs and chickens, I'm not sure. Erin and I know the emperor is naked.
There is TONS of fried chicken. Thais eat sugar like they breath air. The soda is delicious, Pepsi, Coke, it doesn't matter. It all has real sugar in it. As many of you may know I have drank on average 3 sodas per year for the last ten years in the states. Here I have one almost everyday. Partly because the are so damned good, and partly because they come in glass bottles that are recycled immediately as opposed to plastic bottles that are probably burned.
There is no cheese. I have missed cheese. This morning my neighbor asked if I missed my home or mother, I replied that I miss cheese. I am not sure if she got that. On the Picasa photos you will now find a photo of a group of us at a new restaurant that sells cheese fries with Velveeta on them. Several of the cheese lovers have taken to paying 80 baht for a small plate of Shur-Fine level fries with Velveeta on them. This is 3x more than a large plate of real Thai food costs here. Bankok next week. It will be a cheesy affair.
Oh yea, and the title of this post....two things Thais think we love are ketchup and spaghetti. Here, you need ketchup to make spaghetti.
Red
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