have taken place, which the Thais have welcomed, embraced and fused into their own rich, culinary heritage.
In Thai cuisine you will find the influences of Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Malaysia and, of course, China. But perhaps the most significant invasion came not from the region but from South America when, in the sixteenth century, Portuguese merchant men introduced to Thailand the signature taste of chillies.
Chillies and Thai cooking are symbiotic. From the explosively dynamite hot, tiny bird’s eye chillies, right through the gamut of this exquisite vegetable to large peppers, green, yellow and red, chillies are extremely important to Thai cooking, and make vibrant displays in huge wicker baskets all over the country. Whether chopped fresh and popped into dishes or compounded into pastes, they are indispensable. Another vital ingredient is fish sauce, which is used throughout South East Asia instead of salt. Tiny fish, often anchovies, are laid out on the beach in their thousands and allowed to dry before being put into vats and left to ferment; incidentally, the Romans had a similar sauce that was called liquamen.
Red chilli paste is available ready-made from the markets.
Juicy, aromatic limes.
Local honey.
The Thais just can’t get enough fresh and dried chillies.
Bowls of fermented fish at Klong Toey Market.
The explosive tastes of Thai food are also enhanced by the citric and sour flavours provided by lime juice, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves and tamarind, and are then softened with either coconut water or coconut milk and the indispensable masses of fresh basil, mint and coriander – just loosely ripped up and chucked onto the top of any dish, they give a crunchy freshness and combat the fiery tastes.
In the north and north-west of Thailand, on the Burmese border, in the lush forests and jungles of places like Mae Hong Son and Chiang Mai, where wonderful rivers flow and working elephants bathe, you will find fiercely hot curries and salads. Even in the twenty-first century, the lore of the hunter-gatherer is reflected in the leaves and vegetables that are used for these salads – very often served with a warm dressing of chillies, fish sauce, palm sugar and lime juice – and in the very distinctive cooking of this region. Obviously, Bangkok, an international city, will cook, display and sell the delights of the whole country and, of course, the dreaded McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and all the other appalling effects of American gastronomic imperialism.
As you progress south towards Malaysia, you will, as you do in Kerala in southern India, enter the world and the land of the coconut – so important in the rich, creamy, spicy, subtle, fragrant curries and the delicate, but deliciously sweet puddings.
A few of the many vegetables used in Thai cookery.
Preparing palm sugar.
Coconuts awaiting collection by boat at the Damnoen-Saduak floating market.
In this slender volume, I am saddened that I do not have the space to eulogise at length over the subtleties and fundamentals of Thai cooking, so here, in a plain and straightforward way, are some brief, but important guidelines:
Basic utensils
Since in Thailand most of the cooking is done in huge aluminium vats over charcoal-fired barbeques, or in woks, or even, such as is the case with the famous sticky rice, cooked in bamboo tubes about 7.5 cm/3 inches in diameter (or baskets) over a low charcoal fire, it is going to be quite difficult, in our highly sophisticated Western kitchens, to replicate the amazing flavours that these simple heat sources create.
Cooking up a storm at the floating market.
The indispensable wok, for sale at Klong Toey Market.
These baskets are used for cooking sticky rice.
Sticky rice for sale, alongside wooden pestles and mortars.
The chopping boards are sturdy and need to be to withstand all the use they’re put to.
Unidentified frying objects.
The colours and shapes of turned wood are very attractive.
Charcoal-fired cooking stoves.
Since a lot of Thai cooking is done in woks, it is good to have a high-flamed gas stove, or, indeed, a powerful bottled-gas camping stove – you can cook outside when it is not raining. You will need a couple of woks, a small one and a large one. If you have an electric cooker, buy flat-bottomed woks; if you have a fiery gas cooker, buy round-bottomed woks. You need a large pan for deep-fat frying, with a wire basket for straining. You need a couple of large bamboo steamers with lids and a suitably large pan the same size as the steamer so that it can sit on top of the boiling water. I do think an electric rice cooker is a really brilliant idea. Not only does it mean you will cook rice perfectly every time, but the rice will stay hot without spoiling for up to a couple of hours, and since the essence of Thai cooking is rice placed in the centre of the table, while everything else is just an accompaniment, this means that you can serve a small portion of rice time after time with each successive dish. For the serious-minded and those with ample time, a large, heavy pestle and mortar is de rigueur for preparing your pastes and salads. For those with less time, invest in an electric food processor. You will need sensible tongs to turn and lift the food; you will need wooden spoons or spatulas for stir-frying; a set of very sharp knives, and some substantial chopping boards. Should you find yourself on holiday in Thailand, you will notice in the markets that their chopping boards are mostly circular and cut from the trunk of a tree, upon which they deftly chop everything from chickens to vegetables with an extremely sharp cleaver – not for them a posey little knife rack filled with blunt knives acquired from some readers’ offer in a magazine.
Ingredients
The Thais relish virtually every kind of green vegetable that there is, from Morning Glory, which is a form of lily pad, through to long green beans called Snake Beans. They can be between 30, 38 or 45 cm/12, 15 or 18 inches long. If you can find them, well and