The real deal?
Seeking out authentic Thai food
What is "real" Thai food like? In what ways is Thai food good, and how can real Thai food be obtained and eaten? These questions come up all the time.
If you are going to talk about "real" Thai food, first you have to specify an historical period to provide context. The kind we eat now is certainly Thai, but it is part of our urban society where people work outside the home and have to adhere to a work schedule. Most workers have to eat at restaurants and food shops, which exist at many levels and price ranges. But the way of thinking that underlies them depends on the conditions defined by the ingredients used, whether they be fresh ones such as fish, pork, shrimp and vegetables; dry ones such as chillies, onions and garlic; or seasonings such as prepared chilli pastes, sauces and flavour enhancers.
The same ones are used by almost all Thai restaurants, and the recipes that include them are mostly similar. Another important consideration is that the food is made in large quantities, corresponding with the number of customers who will be eating it. All of these facts show that we are living in an era of industrial food.
But if we were to travel back in time 100 years or so to look at the Thai food of the past, we would find ourselves in an agricultural society. People had more time then, and food was prepared in the home. The ingredients used tended to be things that were right at hand, or items such as beef and pork that could be bought. Shrimp, fish or shellfish could be caught in nearby waters, depending on location. Fresh produce could have been either plants cultivated in kitchen gardens, including chillies, limes, galangal, lemongrass, various kinds of basil, gourds, watermelons and different herbs, or those that grew on trees, such as bamboo, tamarind, mangoes, papayas, star fruit and local types like santols and makham pom. Seasonings such as nam pla and pla ra (fermented fish) could either be bought or made at home.
The thought behind Thai cooking in those days often combined simple and complicated approaches to the preparation of a single dish. The basic flavour of a dish was supposed to blend sourness, saltiness, sweetness and peppery heat, but the balance of these components depended on the tastes of the household where it was made.
Another important factor was economy. Nothing was discarded easily. If there were leftover ingredients, they were used to make another dish. And since people prepared the food for themselves they also passed on their cooking techniques. Many aspects of Thai cooking were highly scientific, and it was very flexible, with changes and adjustments made depending on the situation. What was important was that the result be delicious with properly balanced flavours.
One example of simplicity and complexity in the preparation of the same dish can be seen in tom plalai tom pret, a kind of tom yum made from eels. People who like to drink alcohol also like foods known as kap klaem, which have potent flavours. The idea behind it is strange, and has to do with the way the dish is made. First, galangal, lemongrass dried chillies, onion and garlic are all grilled and pounded to a coarse consistency, and put into water to boil. The mixture is seasoned to taste with nam pla and fresh chillies, and when it boils strongly live eels are added and the pot quickly covered. Before they die, the eels try to lunge out of the hot water and hit the lid. They give the dish its name of tom pred, after the hungry ghosts of Thai folklore that are very tall and thin. Before the dish is eaten, fresh basil leaves are added. This is the simple approach to making the dish.
But there is another, more complicated way, in which the slimy skin of the eels is removed first. It is taken off using the abrasive leaves of a plant called ton khoy, which are scraped against the fish until the meat is white. If the leaves are not available, ashes are used. Then the eels are cut into sections and grilled until almost dry, after which the meat is taken off the bones. The eel meat forms long strands that have the aroma of the smoke from the fire on which they were grilled.
The meat is then cooked in a tom yum broth that is the same as the one used with the live eels, and basil leaves are added. This technique for making the soup is more arduous, but both are equally delicious.
There are several kinds of fish cooks prefer to grill before preparing them as a curry or spicy stir-fry. The local types, for example pla krathing or pla lod, have meat that is formed into long strands when grilled, and the meat tastes better when it is grilled than when it isn't.
People who live near the sea know this. When they are going to make a dish with the meat of a ray, they grill it first. It takes more time, but the final result is better.
In Thai cooking there is always a good reason for everything, even simply scraping the meat from a coconut. The kratai, a rabbit-shaped traditional implement used for this purpose, does the job best, but working with it is fatiguing. The coconut meat shredded from the shell this way is coarser and hence very suitable for making dishes such as yum mamuang. It is toasted in a hot pan until it turns yellow, then mixed with finely-pounded dried shrimp, coarsely-pounded peanuts, chopped grilled onion, ginger and sliced kaffir lime leaf. Then sugar, lime juice and shredded unripe mango are put in. The aroma of the toasted coconut is very appetising.
Shredding and squeezing coconut meat by hand to extract the cream has been shown to be the best way because the cream obtained is not unhealthily rich. When the extraction is done with a machine it becomes too oily and the body can't digest it properly.
One example of economic use of ingredients in Thai cooking: When a watermelon has been eaten, the green shell can be cooked into a soup-like kaeng som. It's tasty and costs very little to make.
As for the goodness and benefits of Thai food, plants gathered from a field, forest or kitchen garden will surely not have been fed with chemical fertilisers, so they are safe. And many ingredients also have medicinal properties that are especially effective when eaten fresh or raw.
Then there is the final question of how real Thai food can be obtained and eaten. This can be difficult in our age of industrial cooking. The best way is to make it yourself using original methods that combine simplicity with complexity. The hard part might involve the inconvenience of using old equipment like charcoal stoves. Today we have small electric ovens that make things easier.
When making curry pastes, using a mortar and pestle is still appropriate and necessary, and the pay-off for using them regularly is gaining expertise at making all kinds of curry pastes and growing self-confidence at making nam prik. When choosing fresh ingredients such as fish, go with nature. Local ingredients sourced from natural water sources are the best, preferable to pond-farmed fish raised on factory-made feed. Chickens should be free-range kai baan, not the chicken farm birds bloated up with hormones.
Chicken and duck eggs should also come from free-range birds. It is easy to recognise a good duck egg because of the soil or mud that adheres to its shell. And local vegetables are the best. Every market has them for sale. Kaeng som can be made from almost-ripe papaya, or from unripe watermelon, or gourds.
If you shop and cook this way, you will have Thai food that is good for your health, economical to prepare and tastes the way you want it to. If you start eating food like this, home-made and prepared the way it was in Thailand's agricultural past, you will begin enjoying what night truthfully be called "real" Thai food.
Credit: Bangkok Post
No comments:
Post a Comment