a new taste of Thailand
สวัสดีครับ Sawadeekrap!
Welcome to beautiful Thailand! Filled with stunning temples, smiling locals, spicy food, and a tai-kadai language, this authentic culture craves study from all disciplines. While sharing my unique adventures and pretty pictures, I aim more to delve into the vast abyss that is Thai culture, too often assumed to be pad thai, pretty girls, and white beaches. With my background studying cultural anthropology, paired with language and political science, my time in Thailand will be focused on deconstructing the importance Thais place around their food, as well as how tourism has changed the meaning, practice, quality, and importance of eating as a Thai. Since a little kid drinking ชาเย็น chaa yen (Thai iced-tea), my mom instilled a passion for Thai cuisine. It is important for us, as humans who require sustenance, to appreciate the food we choose to eat. Anthropologist Gillian Crowther, author of Eating Culture (2013), reminds us of the function food plays in our lives. “Food is our everyday creative and meaningful engagement with nature through culture…humans don’t just randomly feed; we select, fashion, concoct, and make an edible assemblage that fits our imagining of food” (Crowther 2013:XVIII). Food, therefore, is the simplest form of the selective choice of environmental manipulation for human advancement. Changing the environment from object to artifact for the sole purpose of consumption creates the basic definition of a culture; placing hierarchical importance on objective material in a human’s life. Food, therefore, is vital for understanding any culture.
My first week in Thailand was overloaded with new flavors, textures, smells, and sights. With a home base at Uniloft in the neighborhood of สุเทพ Suthep close to the campus of Chiang Mai University, I am luckily far away from the touristy center of Old Town, where authenticity within cuisine is quickly diminishing. On ซอยเจ็ด Soi 7, carts serve dishes from ข้าวซอย Khao Soi (traditional chicken bone & beef liver soup) to ข้าวไก่ทอด Khaw Gai Koah (fried chicken on rice). At my favorite restaurant, ขนมจีนหล่มเก่า หลัง มช kah nom thien loo khaw laam ngoo, I order ส้มตำ Som Tam, spicy papaya salad–crisp, refreshing, sour, sweet, salty, and spicy, all masterfully combined together in perfect proportions, leaving your mouth in awe of its magic.
All these dishes are prepared by one woman cooking on a single burner stove, with 1 wok, 1 knife, and 1 spoon. Watching these chefs prepare the 30 orders that come in at the same time is a miracle in itself. No measurements, just different spoonfuls of น้ำปลา nam plaa (fish sauce), น้ำตาล shugar, น้ำมะนาว nam manow (lemon juice), พริก prik (chili), and ถั่วเหลืองหมัก khoon loo mak (fermented soy paste). It is amazing that different combinations of these simple ingredients create such a varying palate that defines Thai food.
Since I have been here, two Thai students have reached out to help me and Christian, an ethnographic film major, with our Thai and learning the ins and outs of Chiang Mai on their motorbikes. Recently, Mew and Chitsa took us out to try a Thai dessert, ขนม kha-nom (literally ‘dessert’). This cereal of coconut milk, ice shavings, corn, stale bread, green noodles, and fermented water chestnuts coated in a waxy red sugar was devoured by my new friends. Even for my adventurous diet, watery coconut milk with salty corn didn’t sit well with me. Despite my intolerance for the dish, Mew and Chitsa were ecstatic that two Americans were willing to try something so foreign. Their positive attitude and excitement made me feel at home in such a new environment. Their smiles and laughs were parallel to that of many Thais, where my desire to share in their local culture makes thems proud of their heritage and traditions. That makes me feel great, showing someone that what makes them who they are is valued in the eyes of someone completely different from them. So, I look forward to continue try new things, learn more Thai, and become as local as possible with my three new adventurers.
