Thai Food

Over the last few years, Thai food has emerged from the shadows to take its rightful place alongside the world's great cuisines such as Chinese, French and Italian. All across the globe people have become used to the flavours of lemongrass, galangal, lime and Thai basil and in most western cities we can find popular Thai restaurants serving green and red curries, papaya salads and spicy hot and sour soup (tom yam). But of course, the best place to sample the full range and depth of this wonderful food is in Thailand itself.

In fact, Thai food is not really one cuisine, but four southern, central, northern and nort-eastern. And the Thais have never been shy of borrowing from their neighbours and other nearby countries. For example, the dishes of northern Thailand are heavily influenced by the food of the Lao people and many popular Thai dishes were originally introduced by the Chaozhou people of China, but adapted to meet local tastes and ingredients.

Thai cooks seek balance in their meals and although Thai food has a world-wide reputation for its spiciness, that is only one part of the picture. The cook is aiming for harmony of taste and textures within each dish and within the whole meal and will try to include spicy, sour, sweet, salty, and sometimes, bitter.

Thai food is usually eaten with a fork and spoon, where the fork is used to push the food onto the spoon which is then transferred to the mouth. Chopsticks are only used to eat noodle dishes. Knives are not used at the dining table.

As throughout SE Asia, a key ingredient in Thai cooking is nam pla or fish sauce. This is used in a similar way to soy sauce in Chinese cuisine and is both used as an ingredient and in dips served with other dishes. Sticky (glutinous) rice is popular, especially in the north but Thai long grain rice is also justly famous.

With its long shoreline, it should be no surprise that seafood takes a huge place in Thai food. The first meal I ever ate in Thailand is fixed in my memory. The restaurant was no more than a few tables at the side of a Bangkok street and my choice was made by pointing at another diner's meal. A deep fried fish with a spicy tamarind sauce arrived. The contrast of the delicate fish and the slightly bitter sauce was unforgettable. But possibly the best meal I have ever eaten anywhere was on one of Thailand's beautiful islands. In a tiny deserted beach restaurant my companion and I ordered a crab dish from the waiter / chef. He disappeared behind the rocks at the end of the beach and just as we were thinking he had run away, he reappeared dripping wet, clutching a huge crab which he had just caught. He then cooked it and served us a delicious, very fresh, very spicy crab curry. The heat of the chillies was perfectly balanced by the jasmine rice and perfectly cooked sweet crab meat. We washed it down with a bottle or three of the local Singha beer and watched the sun set over the perfectly calm sea.

A typical Thai meal will include soup, a curry, a fried dish and a steamed dish, perhaps a salad and some dips all served at the same time along with a bowl of rice. Variety is the key – in ingredients, cooking methods, colours and textures.

Visitors to Thailand should make a point of sampling the street food, especially in the larger cities such as Bangkok.. Everywhere, you can find impromptu stalls frying, grilling, stewing and poaching food of every description. The choice is unlimited, merely depending on the skills and whims of the cook – pancakes, satay-style kebabs, fishcakes, etc. And look out for the grilled insects on offer, especially in the north! Deep-fried grasshoppers, crickets, bee larvae and silkworms. They are more texture than flavour and taste a little like popcorn with chilli. Enjoy!