Thai food of the north, in some way, is cooked with
the sole thought for the taste for the northern people. The recipe
consists of vegetable and ingredients available in their immediate
vicinity. The common meal includes steamed glutinous rice, chili sauces
which come in a host of varieties, such as "namprik noom", "namprik dang",
"namprik ong" and chili soups (gang) such as gang hangle, gang hoh,
gang kae. In addition there are also, local sausages such as sai ua, and
nham; steamed meat, roasted pork, pork resin, fried pork, fried chicken
and vegetable to go with them.
The northern people have penchant for medium cooked
food with a touch of salty tastes almost to the exclusion of sweet and
sour tastes. Meat preferred by the northern people is pork followed by
beef, chicken, duck, bird etc. Sea food is the least known on account of
the remoteness of the northern region from the sea.
Thai food of the north does not lack in varieties.
These are dishes to be consumed at different times of the day. The
northern breakfast known in the local dialect as khao gnai consisting
mainly of steamed glutinous rice. Cooked in the early hours of the day,
steamed glutinous rice is packed in a wicker basket made from bamboo
splints or palmyra palm leaves. The farmer takes the packed basket to the
working rice field and eat the glutinous rice as lunch, known in the
dialect as "khaw tom". Dinner or "khaw lang" is an familiar affair is
served on raised wooden tray or "kan toke". The tray which is about 15 to
30 inches in diameter is painted in red.
Traditional Method of Serving Northern
Food
The northern people are known to follow their
traditions in a very strict and faithful manner, in particular the
tradition of serving and partaking of the evening meal. Food is placed in
small cups placed on "kantoke" which could be an inlaid wooden or brass
tray depending on the economic status of the house owner. Served together
with "kantoke" is steamed glutinous rice that is the staple food of the
northerner packed in a wicker basket. There is also a kendi containing
drinking water nearby. Water is poured from the kendi to a silver drinking
cup from which water is drunk. After the main course come desserts and
local cigars to conclude the evening meal.
Central Thai
cuisine
The Thai in the central plain prefer food with smooth
and lasting taste with a touch of sweetness. The way the food is served is
an art in itself. The dinning table is often decorated with carved
vegetable and fruit. Cuisine of the central plain sometimes combines the
best of the foods from various regions.
Rice is strictly the staple food for every family in
the central region. There are on the average three to five dishes to go
with rice. Typical are soup, gang som (chili vegetable soup), gang phed
(Thai red curry), tom yam (spiced soup) and so on. Chili fried meat dishes
are for instances, pad phed, panaeng, masaman, fried ginger and green
pepper, Thai salads or yam are yam tua pu, salad with sliced roasted beef.
Dishes that regular feature fin a Thai meal of the central region are
vegetable, namprik (chili sauce), platoo (local herring), and perhaps
omelette (Thai style), fried beef of roasted pork. On the whole Thai meal
should meet protein and vitamin requirements with plenty to
spare.
Traditional Methods of Serving Thai Food of the
Central Region
The central plain of Thailand has always been known
for its progress and advance in all areas of human activity, be it
intellectual, technological or cultural.
The Thai in the central region have adopted spoon and
fork and a common ditching spoon as the standard cutlery set for Thai
meals. For affluent families, napkins simply folded or folded into various
geometrical shapes are also to be seen depending also on individual
family's tradition and taste. Dishes, boiled rice and drinking water are
laid on the dinning table and for the family which can afford the service
of a maid, will be replenished by a waiting maid as the meal progresses.
Less well to do families may do without shared spoons together, and family
members take food from the dish by their own spoons.
Northeast
(Isaan) Cuisine
Like Thai food of the north, Thai food of the
northeast has steamed glutinous rice as a staple base to be taken with
spiced ground meat with red pork blood, papaya salad or som tom, roasted fish, roasted
chicken, jim-jaem, and rotted fish or pla rah. The northeast prefer to
have their meat fried and the meat could be frog, lizard, snake, rice
field rat, large red ants, insects etc. Pork, beef and chicken are
preferred by well to do families.
Traditional Methods of Serving Thai Food in the
northeast
Dishes are served in a large enameled food tray which
sports a pattern of large and colorful flowers. Food is taken from the
dishes is taken with steamed glutinous rice contained in a wicker basket
(katib) made in the peculiar style of the northeastern people. Desserts
mainly consisting of processed glutinous rice such as, khao niew hua ngog
nang led, etc.
Southern Thai
Cusine
Thai food of the south tends to be exceedingly chili
hot compared with Thai food from other regions of Thailand. Specially
favored dishes of the south are a whole variety of gang (spiced soup or
curry) for examples, gang liang, gang tai pla, and budu sauce. Boiled rice mixed in budu sauce known as khao
yam is a delicatessen of the southern people. Salty is taste, khao yam is
taken with an assortment of vegetable. Considered special ties of the
south are sataw, med riang and look niang.
Sataw is a green pod when stripped reveals green
berries. Strawberries sometimes chopped into thin slices are cooked with
meat and chili or simply added to any gang or maybe boiled with other
vegetable in coconut milk, or taken raw with chili sauce. The berries can
be preserved by pickling and eaten without further cooking.
Med riang is very much like a bean sprout but much
larger in size and dark green in color. It is ready for eating after the
outer skin is removed. It can be cooked with vegetable and meat or pickled
for eating with gang, chili sauce or lon (ground meat or fish in chili
sauce).
Look niang is a round berry in a hard and dark green
skin. When the skin is removed it is ready for eaten. The inner layer may
or may not be removed depending on individual taste. Look niang may be raw
or with chili sauce, lon, gang liang especially gang tai pla. Ripe look
niang boiled and mixed with coconut flakes and sugar is served as a
dessert.
Information from: "Rice and Thai Ways of Life"
published by Office of the National Culture
Commission.
Cuisine of the Royal Household Thailand's Original Recipes
nam
phrik pla thu
In the past, the Royal Household served as the primary source for home
economics, cooking, needlework, and Thai manners.
The royal ladies
in the palaces rigorously trained their ladies-in-waiting; therefore, many
upper-class families took their daughters there so that they would learn
to cook and to do other household chores, and thus be prepared for
marriage and family life. The royal palace's home economics expertise has
since proliferated.
After the country's change in 1932 from an
absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, during the reign of King
Rama VII, the old and new generations of the Royal Household maids moved
out of the palaces. Some modified and applied what they learned to earn
money to support themselves or their families.
Some foreign dishes
on the royal menu have been modified to please the Thai palate. Sometimes
the cooks are inventive and modify dishes from the other regions, too.
These days, the food that is made for the Royal Household is not much
different from the common folks' dishes; in fact, some of the dishes are
even prepared for sale to the general public in various outlets.
khao
suai
Thai Dishes of the Central
Region
Regular rice is the staple food in this region. There are varieties of
dishes that the people here eat with their rice, and a meal often includes
some form of spicy dip for vegetables, a hot and sour vegetable soup, a
type of curry, and a plate of fried vegetables, or a soup and a spicy
fried meat dish. They also have seasonal dishes, such as cold rice soup,
or sticky rice topped with ripe mangoes in the hot season.
nam phrik ma kham
sot
miang
kham
The meal is arranged on a table and eaten with fork and spoon (knives
are not needed). Most dishes are the typical central region dishes, but
people sometimes include their favorites from other regions for
variety.
kaeng som dog
khae
nam phrik long
ruea
kaeng khiao wan luk chin pla
krai
People occasionally include beautifully arranged dishes from royal
cuisine and dishes from other countries. All dishes, however, offer
complete nutrition: protein from meat, vitamins and minerals from
vegetables, and medicinal attributes from herbs. For instance, spicy and
sour vegetable soup balances the body's physical elements in line with
Thai traditional medicine, and the tasty, spicy dips help nourish the four
elements and strengthen the body.
The South
Southern dishes are unique in
their flavors thanks to influence from the neighboring country, Malaysia.
Several cities in the South served as central trading ports visited by
vendors from India, China, and Java (Indonesia), so there are some spices
and herbs in some of the dishes influenced by southern India and other
countries.
Southern dishes in general reflect the mixed influences
between Thai and southern Indian dishes, particularly in the four major
southern provinces. Some new dishes are invented and some were modified to
suit the southerners' palate and are considered a valuable feature in
their southern heritage.
Some traditional southern dishes handed
down through generations, and so not influenced by other countries'
cuisine, are cooked from raw materials found locally. The cooking
procedures are simple, and the main condiments are shrimp paste, tamarind
sauce, and palm sugar, all made locally. In original recipes, there is no
coconut milk or spices.
Phuket Dishes
The southern cuisine and
customs of eating are categorized by the nations influencing their dishes.
Some dishes are influenced by the traditional local culture, and those
that came later are developed with new cooking styles. They are all
eventually included in the southerners' meals.
Phuket dishes are
influenced by Chinese food as a result of the large number of Hokkian
migrating from British and Dutch colonies in the Malaysian peninsula to
settle down in the province in the Rattanakosin era. Phuket dishes are
mild with a sweet note in them.
The menu on the island of Phuket is
a result of the compromise between the southern cuisine and Hokkian
cuisine. The dishes are distinctively different from those cooked by the
southerners and Muslims. Differences and variety are what differentiate
the natives of Phuket Island.
They like to eat rice noodles as much
as everybody else in the country does, but they top theirs with steamed,
spicy hotcakes, deep-fried hot and spicy fish patties, and churos
or boiled eggs. Other Phuket dishes include Hokkian noodles, similar to
Japanese soba, and loba, which is crisp, fried, cinnamon-spiced
pork intestine eaten with fried tofu cakes, fried wonton, and sauteed
mussels, called o-tao.
Southern
Meals
The meals are often arranged on a mat and eaten by
hand, which people say enhances the flavor of the meals, though now they
use forks and spoons and their meals are arranged on mats or tables,
depending on their preferences and the economic status of the
families.
khanom chin nam
phrik
khao
yam
For breakfast, southerners prefer eating out, and the most convenient
and popular breakfast is fermented noodles topped with spicy fish bladder
curry, green curry, spicy peanut curry, and spicy fish curry. Other meals
usually include either of the two staple foods - rice or fermented noodles
- with yellow curry or spicy fish bladder curry. Local vegetables, such as
"stink beans", luk niang leaves (young cashew nuts), and young
rajapreuk (golden shower) leaves are consumed along with the spicy
dishes to reduce the hot taste and to improve the appetite. Another
popular dish is rice topped with vegetables and southern sweet sauce, or
"sweet budu."
kaeng lueang & kaeng tai
pla
khanom chin nam
ya
The most traditional condiment is budu sauce, made of tiny
salted fish that are fermented by exposure to the strong sunlight for a
few months. The result is a brownish sauce, the color of shrimp paste, and
it can taste either sweet or salty. The sweet type is used to top the
above-mentioned dish of rice with vegetables, and the salty one is used as
a condiment in spicy dips. Southern dishes are unique because of their
sharp salty and sour tastes, as well as strong aromatic spices due to
their geographic location.
Spices not only add color to their
dishes but also override strong meat odors, improve the flavor, and
increase the appetite. The habit of eating hot and spicy food helps warm
up people's bodies and prevents them from getting a cold in the hot and
humid climate.
Moreover, being close to the sea, they have an
abundant supply of seafood.
Thai Cuisine - Mastering the Art of
Versatility
The generic name for cooked items or dishes from a Thai kitchen is
"kap khao" - "in addition to rice" or "to be taken with rice." Such
dishes vary in accordance with the geophysical makeup of the land it
originated in. Because the people have resided along the country's
waterways since ancient times, fishbased dishes make up the Thai people's
daily diet, complemented by fresh vegetables found in abundance near their
homes. As time passed and the society developed, conventional Thai dishes
also underwent changes and became more versatile, in terms of ingredients,
cooking methods, and tastes. International trade that the country engaged
in through the ages also brought foreign food cultures that the Thais
embraced and adapted to suit their tastes.
Thai dishes can
therefore be roughly categorized into two types: genuine and
adapted.
khao
chae
Genuine Thai dishes are those that have been cooked by the Thais since
time immemorial. They include such dishes as "summer rice" - khao
chae - rice in ice-cold water, served with various condiments; spicy
clear soup - tom khlong and tom yam - with herbs, meat and
vegetables; hot curry or goulash - kaeng pa, kaeng khae, and
kaeng om - curry with no coconut milk but with meat and vegetables;
and spicy dips - nam phrik and lon, for instance. Thai
desserts and sweetmeats, meanwhile, are made mainly of rice flour, sugar,
and coconut milk, such as khanom piak pun, khanom chan,
tako, and lotchong, for example. Those with egg yolk and egg
white mixed in are adapted from other food cultures.
But alongside
the genuine dishes, a large number of Thai dishes resulted from the
adaptation of foreign food to Thai taste, so masterfully done that the
Thais themselves adopted them as their own. They are dishes like kaeng
kari (curry), kaeng massaman (from "Mussulman," that is,
Muslim), both adapted from Indian food, while stir-fried and steamed
dishes and vegetable soups are adapted from Chinese food. Several desserts
and sweetmeats have been introduced by Europeans since the Ayutthaya
Period, such as thong yip (gold cup), thong yot (gold drop),
thong prong (gold nest), foi thong (gold thread) and
sangkhaya (egg custard), for example.
With the wise blending
of foreign cuisines into Thai cookery, the versatile Thai master chefs
(normally female) invented new recipes that are now well-known all over
the world. Cooking methods used in the Thai kitchens are diverse. Apart
from boiling, grilling, and frying the food, there are specific methods
that are characteristic of Thai food, as described
below.
Tam - as in som tam, the world-famous spicy
papaya salad - refers to the pounding of one or more food items in a
mortar, as ingredients or as the main dishes, such as pla pon
(pounded fish), kung pon (pounded shrimp), nam phrik sot
(fresh spicy dip), nam phrik haeng (dry spicy dip), nam phrik
phao (sambal, from Indonesia), and phrik kap klua
(pounded and seasoned roasted coconut meat).
Yam is a form
of spicy salad, in which vegetables, cooked meat and seasoning sauce are
mixed. The sauce combines saltiness and sourness, laced with the hot taste
of capsicum. Popular ingredients for yam include mimosa, wing bean, rose
apple stamen, grilled meat, seafood, and sausages of all
sorts.
Kaeng is the general term for a type of curry that
does not use curry powder. Thai herbs and spices such as shallot, garlic,
lemon grass, galangal, and turmeric root are pounded into a paste and
dissolved over a fire in water or coconut milk as soup, with meat and
vegetables added. Hot chilies or capsicum are indispensable, with varying
seasoning and spices used to make such dishes as kaeng som,
kaeng phet, and kaeng khua.
Lon is the term
for spicy dip with coconut milk, which is meant to be eaten with fresh
vegetables. It has three main tastes - sour, salty, and sweet - and can be
made with soy bean paste or preserved fish as
ingredients.
Kuan is a method of cooking liquefied food over
a medium fire, usually done to preserve ripe fruits. Large wooden spoons
are used to turn the ingredients thoroughly in a quick and forceful
motion. Such sweetmeats as palm sugar caramel, khanom piak pun,
tako, and thua (bean) kuan, are made in this
manner.
Ji involves cooking in a frying pan with some oil,
as in the case of paeng ji and khanom ba bin, for
instance.
Lam is a way of cooking food by putting
ingredients in a section of bamboo and smoking it, as with khao
lam, glutinous rice flavored with coconut milk and other ingredients,
smoked in bamboo
sections.
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such as gang hangle, gang hoh,
gang kae. In addition there are also, local sausages such as sai ua, and
nham; steamed meat, roasted pork, pork resin, fried pork, fried chicken
and vegetable to go with them.
various regions.
papaya salad or som tom, roasted fish, roasted
chicken, jim-jaem, and rotted fish or pla rah. The northeast prefer to
have their meat fried and the meat could be frog, lizard, snake, rice
field rat, large red ants, insects etc. Pork, beef and chicken are
preferred by well to do families.
sauce. Boiled rice mixed in budu sauce known as khao
yam is a delicatessen of the southern people. Salty is taste, khao yam is
taken with an assortment of vegetable. Considered special ties of the
south are sataw, med riang and look niang.
