So after another interesting meal today, I think it's about time we mentioned something about Thai food. What an experience! From the first day, our taste buds have been assaulted (and sometimes INsulted) with flavour combinations that don't seem possible. After a few months we have managed to diverge from the familiar pad thai to more exotic meals. But not without some consequences...
Take, for example, the yellow, red and green curries. Degrees of spiciness? Perhaps. Different flavours? Most certainly. But to our newly acquainted stomachs, these meals were more likely indicators of the shades we turned as our digestive tracts were called into action. "Here we come, dribbly bum!" (a phrase courtesy of one of Pete's friends!) Fortunately for travelers, and I suspect some locals alike, the average Thai lavatorial equipment includes a very handy hose pipe that refreshingly cools the fire of your gugu valve if one of these meals happens to get the better of you.
Many meals precede their hidden agenda with an incredible variety of flavours. Baby garlic, lemon grass, spring onions, shallots, sugar, palm oil, limes...the list is endless. Sadly, these taste sensations usually last about 3 seconds before you are slammed into the back of your chair while simultaneously breaking into a dripping sweat that starts on your tongue and quickly spreads to your eye balls. "Paassss the waaaaater pleeeeeease!!!!"
At school, we have very kindly been invited to lunch with the grade 1 teachers on a number of occasions. (I think they invite me just to make sure Pete comes. I've never seen a bunch of ladies titivate over a guy as much as these ones! Needless to say these are also the ladies that saw a photo of my dad and were wondering if he wanted a Thai girlfriend!!) Daily, we are delighted by the mixes they bring in for us. Today was pad mee, a local pad thai made with a thick, fiery tamarind sauce. Together with this was the ubiquitous som tham. Otherwise known as papaya salad, this refreshing salad is made of grated green papaya, baby tomatoes, whole garlic cloves, and dried mouse shit chillies (yup, I believe that's the official name) all banged together in a pestle and mortar and served with brown fish sauce. A delicious alternative to this is som tham tod or fried papaya salad. Same ingredients, but with deep fried green papaya and a little less mouse shit.
Another friendly accompaniment to today's lunch was boiled eggs in brown pork soup. Delicious eggs until a suspicious teacher pointed at the eggs, then to her chest and general crotch area while giggling hysterically and looking at Pete. Hmm.... I guess we've moved on from talking about lunch then! And that's without even mentioning the popular spinach-like vegetable "morning glory!!" Ai, poor Pete...
The most popular food to eat here is, without a doubt, street food. Where else in the world can the most suspicious array of food items be combined to form some exceptional cuisine on tenuous portable tuk-tuk kitchens? There's nothing quite like eating tempura prawns, deep fried wantons, braai'd squid, fruit smoothies to die for and even the occasional waffle while perched on a rickety plastic chair on the side of the street. Not to mention avoiding the myriad of stray dogs attempting to get a look in. Round this off with freshly cut pineapple and chilli sugar to dip it in and you know you've had dinner at our local night bazaar. Yum Yum!!
Thai food is not only an experience to eat, but is a large topic of conversation here. Thai people appear to talk about food much like English people talk about the weather. "You have lunch?" "Arroy mai?" "What you have for dinner" These are endless questions which require a response at least 20 times a day. And that's how often it seems Thai people eat. Arrive at school and its breakfast time (usually the staple rice, meat, fish or soup) followed by lunch at 12 and left overs just before the end of the day. This excludes the myriad of snacks, fruit and Thai sweats interspersed throughout the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment