Thailand's repertoire of food rests on three different bases. The first is the household _ foods to be cooked and eaten at home. Some of these dishes are easy to prepare, while others require more work, such as various nam prik (chilli dip sauces) and curries.
The second category also includes food for social or community events. On these occasions, large amounts of food have to be made to feed many people, so a number of housewives with domestic cooking experience pitch in to help out in a communal kitchen.
Finally come the foods associated with religious and festive occasions. These dishes have long histories and traditions associated with them, and include offerings made for Songkran (the Thai lunar New Year), local deities, or to ancestors, as at Chinese Sat Chin (spirit festival) and New Year's ceremonies. Krayasat _ a mixture of seeds and nuts with sugar, honey and sweet milk _ is made for the Thai spirit festival and for the vegetarian festival, when meat and strong-smelling vegetables are not eaten, and is also in this category.
At this time of year, social or community foods are easy to find. At the end of Buddhist Lent, Buddhists celebrate the Tod Kathin festival, an important merit-making event in which new robes are presented to monks. In addition, money is collected to donate to temples to help with maintenance and other expenses. The members of the community who will be holding the festival, together with others from nearby who know the temple and revere the monks there, form a group who share beliefs that have been passed down for long periods of time.
Some things have changed with the environment and shifting social trends. Half a century ago towns and villages, especially in the Central region, were generally quieter and more peaceful than they are now, and when a big Tod Kathin festival was going to be held at a temple, with the robes presented to the monks in the morning, there would be celebrations on the evening before. It would include performances, with likay as the entertainment of choice. Loud music would be played for a long while before it began, drawing people from the surrounding area to come and take part. There would be food, too, generally pad thai noodles and sweets served with ice.
Local people would often have relatives and friends who had gone to work or study in Bangkok, and who would want to return home for the festival. While still in the city, these people would get in touch with others from their hometown area to form a large group who would travel to the village to enjoy the event.
In those days, they would hire a boat that could hold 100 or so passengers _ these were known as ''red boats'' because of their colour, and embark from the Tha Chang pier. It would travel by night, brightly illuminated by lights that gave it the appearance of a floating stage. Everyone had fun eating food and fruit and enjoying the trip. In the morning the festival took place with a happy crowd of celebrants, both local people and the visitors who had come by boat.
Food was an important part of the event. The local people would have set up a communal kitchen, with an experienced older woman in charge. It was she who decided which dishes to prepare, and in what amounts. She would assign specific duties and responsibilities to the others, all housewives from the community, as they made a whole range of different dishes. Heavier work, such as cooking rice in big woks and making the rice noodles called khanom jeen, would be done by the men.
Making khanom jeen is hard work that requires cooperation by a number of people. It also takes a lot of time. Rice must be soaked and slightly fermented, then it is milled to make a thin floury liquid. The starch settles out to form a mass that is boiled, pounded, and extruded into hot water to form the white, spaghetti-like strands of khanom jeen. These noodles have to be on hand to eat with their traditional sauces, known as nam ya and nam prik, and with the spicy coconut cream-based beef curry called kaeng khio wan nuea. Preparing the nam ya, nam phrik and curry might seem like a simple task, but making it in such large quantities requires a lot of labour grinding coconut flesh, extracting coconut cream and pounding the curry paste.
The reason these dishes were chosen was that they were so easy to eat. All that had to be done was to pour them over the khanom jeen, and they could be eaten anywhere. Khanom jeen was and is almost never made at home for family consumption. The procedure is much too complicated.
These various aspects of Tod Kathin were passed on for many generations. These days the red boats have passed out of fashion and celebrants now come by bus, but the event is still a major event on the Buddhist calendar. The social system by which people cooperate to offer food to the community is still part of it, although the temporary community kitchen has largely gone.
Nowadays small stalls will be set up offering different kinds of foods, such as khao man gai (Hainanese-style chicken and rice), sukiyaki with and without broth, various noodle dishes, sticky rice with different salty or sweet toppings, kraphao pla (fish swim bladder soup), ice-cream and coffee.
These food stalls come from various places. Sometimes a number of the faithful make merit by collecting money among themselves to hire a restaurant to serve food to the festival participants, or there might be a family in the community known for making a certain dish well and who prepare it to offer at the event. A local restaurant might contribute to the festival by supplying free food. Since polystyrene containers and dishes, and plastic utensils are used, there is little washing up to do afterwards.
Temples have to do some planning to schedule the Tod Kathin festival. It has to be at a weekend for the convenience of those who want to take part, and if there are a number of temples in the area, they must agree among themselves which one will hold its festival when.
Cooperation and shared food have always been a part of the Tod Kathin celebration. The efforts of the many hands that went into preparing khanom jeen and nam ya is a good example of this community spirit as it was in the past. Today, the dishes served and the way they are made has changed, but the spirit of social sharing is as strong as ever.
