Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 1, 1993 TAG: 9312150003
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NANCIE MCDERMOTT LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Had I set out to learn about Thai cuisine and its regional distinctions, I couldn't have had better luck in terms of the places I stayed. We spent the first six weeks in the central Thai city of Nakorn Sawan, the next six in the northern Thai provincial capital of Chiang Rai. I was then assigned to teach seventh-grade English in Thatoom, a small town in Surin province in the northeastern region known as Pahk Isaan. After two years of country life, I extended my stay for a third year, moving to Bangkok where I shared an apartment with other volunteers and taught English conversation and freshman composition at a university.
I returned to the kingdom in March of 1989 to research regional Thai cooking. It was my dream assignment: eating, talking, visiting, writing, cooking, poking around in kitchens and exploring markets, taking trains and back roads whenever I could.
During my three months of research, I began to see clearly what sets the regions apart and what weaves them together into a whole that is distinctly Thai.
The kitchens of central Thailand and Bangkok are the culinary source for the majority of Thai restaurants outside Thailand. Not only is the food of the Thai heartland the best-known and broadest in appeal, a majority of the Thai immigrants who open and patronize restaurants abroad come from the prosperous central plains.
Agriculture and industry thrive there, and the combination of general prosperity and access to new ideas has fueled culinary fires as well. Central Thailand is the source of palace-style cuisine, developed over generations by trained chefs with limitless access to the freshest and finest local ingredients, exotic imported foods and ideas, and plenty of time and helping hands to aid in preparing and presenting exquisite dishes to delight as well as sustain their patrons.
Western cooks draw a firm line between sweet and savory foods, but throughout Asia, sweetness dances right along with salty, sour and chili-hot flavors. In central Thai kitchens, sweetness often moves from the chorus to center stage. Other hallmarks include a lavish use of coconut milk, meats and seafood; variety in texture and cooking method, as well as ingredients of dishes within a given meal, and attention to refined, colorful presentations. The two classic Thai soups, tome kha gai (chicken-coconut soup with galanga root) and tome yum goong (fiery shrimp and lemon grass soup), are central Thai signature dishes.
Classic palace-style dishes in the central Thai repertoire include mee krob, a glorious crispy tangle of thread-thin dried rice noodles, deep-fried until they puff up, tossed in a tangy, sweet-sour-salty sauce and garnished with pickled garlic, lacy egg nets, scallion brushes and red chili flowers; and khanome jeen nahm prik, a mild, sweet shrimp curry served with rice noodle nests, a platter of crudites expertly carved into fanciful shapes, fragrant herbs and purple-tinged banana flowers.
But the quintessential palace-style dish is kao chae (basically cooked rice served in ice water), an antidote to the ferocious temperatures at the height of Thailand's hot season. It originated in the royal palace kitchens more than a century ago, when ice was precious, an exotic import along the lines of today's truffles and caviar. In kao chae, the ice water is scented with rose petals and jasmine, and the dish is accompanied by an elaborate array of condiments providing the traditional contrasting flavors Thais adore: banana peppers and shallots stuffed with seasoned minced pork and wrapped in lacy egg nets; crisp- fried quenelles of grilled salted fish, shrimp paste and toasted coconut; shredded salty-sweet beef jerky and preserved daikon scrambled with egg.
My six weeks of training in Chiang Rai, Thailand's northernmost province with cool green forests and softly rolling mountains, introduced me to northern Thai life.
The most obvious distinction of northern Thai cooking is a preference for long-grain sticky rice, an emblem of the region's strong ties with neighboring Laos. Soaked for several hours and then steamed until soft and chewy, sticky rice is finger food. Taking a fist-sized portion onto your plate, you pinch off bite-sized nuggets and roll them into smooth wads, to be eaten neat or dipped in sauces and stir-fries, with a Chinese-style soup spoon handy for soups and curries.
Other northern trademarks are mild chili heat and a love of sharp, sour flavors. The prevalence of pork over coconut milk and fish is easy to explain: The cool, mountainous north contains few coconut palms and fewer streams and rivers than other parts of Thailand, and pork is a Chinese favorite. Pigs are also the most common livestock for the hill tribe peoples of the region, whose mountainside villages have limited grazing space and fodder.
Northeastern Thai food could be called the Mexican food of Thailand - a regional cuisine that long ago burst into the gastronomic mainstream on its own delicious merits and is cooked throughout Thailand and beyond.
Years back, Northeastern cooks took on the challenge of doing a lot with a little, working in a region that, unlike others in Thailand, is hampered by poor soil, ungenerous weather and frequent economic downturns. Creativity and spirit seem to have won the day - the rustic food of Isaan, as the northeast is widely known, is robust with firecracker flavors that sing on the tongue.
Northeastern Thailand's people speak a dialect part Thai and part Lao, and their cooking echoes that connection. Like northern Thais, they prefer sticky rice and pair it with simple clear soups, salads and dips made with salt- preserved mackerel and freshwater fish. Herbs and vegetables are grown in kitchen gardens and gathered in the wild, and ducks and chickens supply fresh eggs. Prodigious amounts of chili, garlic, shallots, lime and plah rah, the salty, strong-scented fermented fish sauce-instead of (or in addition to) nahm plah help bring northeastern cuisine to life.
Classic Isaan dishes include gai yahng (garlicky grilled chicken with sweet hot garlic sauce); neua yahng nahm toke (grilled beef) and neua kem (salty sun- dried beef), both served with deliciously volcanic dipping sauces, and isom tum, a fiery slaw of shredded green papaya pounded in a large mortar with garlic, chilies, shrimp paste, fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, cherry tomatoes and green beans. Larb is a hearty saladlike dish of minced pork or beef, wildly seasoned with chilies, fresh mint, lime juice and the crunch of roasted rice powder, and accompanied by raw green beans, a cabbage wedge and cucumber slices to tame its fire. Made to order just before serving, larb is served raw, rare or cooked, and the most traditional, rustic versions include thinly sliced skin and organ meat, seasoned with plah rah.
I'm home in Southern California as I write this, half a world away from the soothing steady racket of my Thai neighbors' cleavers dancing on their tamarind wood cutting boards, of sturdy pestles striking granite mortars, pounding garlic, shallots, chilies, herbs and spices into fragrant, flavorful mush while rice pots steam on charcoal stoves. But it doesn't take more than a few seconds for my thoughts to return to Thailand, weaving the faces, voices, aromas and flavors into a reverie of suppertime in the Thai countryside. My memories are strong and clear, but it still feels like time to go back.
by CNB