It is intriguing to look at the differences between food prepared in different parts the country. The character and weather of each region plays an important part in it. The plants used in cooking, for example, may not be the same. In the South of Thailand there are the strong-smelling beans called sataw, and the larger ones known as luuk nieng, neither of them found in the North (although these days they are cultivated commercially in Isan, the local people do not yet eat them stir-fried with kapi and shrimp, as they do further south). But Isan and the North do have indigenous mushrooms like het lom and het ra-ngoke as well as dill, none of which are grown in the Central Region. The aromatic rhizomes called hua raew and krawaan grown in the East around Chanthaburi are not used in the kitchens of Kanchanaburi or Phetchaburi.
Not only the vegetable ingredients, but the way of life and style of eating changes as you travel from place to place. Even the way of obtaining ingredients varies. People in rural areas prefer gathering them from natural sources whenever possible to buying them, while city dwellers head for the supermarket or local fresh market.
The plant ingredients used in the Central Region are probably the most generally known, and the way most people there get hold of them is by buying them. Unlike the residents of some other parts of the country where agriculture predominates and natural sources of food are nearby, most of them hold workday jobs. This lifestyle gives the food in the Central Region its character, as would be expected.
But despite the differences in the local dishes prepared in different parts of the county, there is something that all cooks have in common. No matter what ingredients are at hand and what is going to be made with them, and no matter whether they were collected in the fields or bought in a market, they must all be used in a way that gets full value from them. This can mean adapting them in certain ways, or making substitutions for ingredients that are not available at the time.
An alternative: Sprouted peanuts.Photos: Suthon Sukphisit
A good example is the soup-like kaeng som made from the yuak kluay, or thee soft centre of a banana tree trunk. After a trunk has fruited once it will bear no more flowers or fruit. Instead of discarding it, cooks remove the tender inner pith and cook it into a curry. After the flowers (used in many dishes) and fruit have been eaten and the leaves cut for their different uses, even the barren old trunk is recruited for the kitchen. After it has been cut, new sprouts will grow and mature into fruiting plants to continue the cycle.
Dishes made from unripe jackfruit show the same concern for economy. They can be made into a curry and, in the North, into a local yam or salad-like dish. The jackfruit tree bears many fruit at once. If growers wait until all of them ripen, it will mean a long wait, because they vie for nutrients and mature slowly. To prevent this, some are removed, but instead of being thrown away, they are made into these special dishes that suit them.
Versatile: The bitter ‘mara khee noke’.
In the South there is a spicy regional soup-like curry called kaeng lueang plaa kraphong yawt mahprao awn, made from ingredients that include sea bass and the main bud of the coconut tree. In some areas the coconut bud may not be available, so freshly sprouted peanuts are used instead. The sprouts are bigger than the familiar mung bean sprouts, and the result is a delicious variant of the famous southern dish.
Another recipe, a southern version of the spicy pork curry called kaeng phet muu, is made with unripe kluay nam waa (a type of banana) in place of other vegetables. Using the very abundant bananas is not only economical, the result is a delectable dish that arouses the appetite of anyone who sees it.
There are some plants that are usually only used in making one single dish, and rarely find their way into other recipes. One of them is the bai yaw, the leaf of the common great morinda or Indian mulberry tree. On most tables, the only place you are likely to find it is in a haw moke (fish and herbs in spicy steamed curried coconut custard). But there are also cooks who have discovered that it is tasty when included in kaeng phet muu saam chan (a spicy coconut cream curry made with streaky pork).
Tasty: 'Kaeng lueang plaa kraphong' with heart of coconut palm, a spicy southern curry.
The bitter, bumpy little fruit called mara khee noke are usually only eaten lightly boiled and accompanying nam phrik kapi, a spicy chilli dip sauce, but they can also be stir-fried with streaky pork and kapi to make a delicious but less familiar dish. The technique is similar to the one used to make a stir-fry of pork with sataw beans, but since the mara khee noke are so bitter they should be lightly boiled before frying. The bitterness is common to both vegetables, but both are believed to have beneficial medicinal properties that survive the cooking.
One final example is the marum, the long, woody pods of a mimosa-like tree that contain beans and juicy pulp. These seem to have been created by nature especially to go into kaeng som. Because of the fibrous, woody exterior, the dish can be hard to eat. But the beans inside are wonderful, with their nutty crunchiness. They can be made into an excellent yam similar to the ones made with wing beans or the shoots of the krathin plant. The sauce for the dish is made from sour tamarind water simmered with palm sugar and nam plaa. It is poured over the marum beans after they have been briefly boiled, then topped with chopped phrik khee nuu, crisp-fried shreds of dried squid, and toasted whole peanuts.
Thailand is home to a rich variety of local plants and vegetables. Creative cooks’ abilities to choose and interchange them and to find new ways to get full value from their special qualities have given us a vast repertoire of unique dishes that continues to diversify and grow. n
