Centuries ago, people emigrated from southern Chinese provinces, mostly Szechwan, into modern-day Thailand, bringing along their culinary traditions. Since that time, many other influences have affected Thai food, including dishes and methods of cooking from India and Portugal. At the Southern part of the country, Malay and Burmese culinary influences are also found.
Thailand has a sizable Buddhist community that has also impacted the cuisine. These influences have been incorporated into Thai gastronomy to create uniquely tasty dishes.
I get all worked up when I see western tourists eating western food in an eastern country like Thailand and not willing to taste the exceptionally good Thai dishes I enjoy. I just can’t help it. This cuisine is known for its remarkable balance of flavors – sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. The food of Thailand is both considerably regional and considerably seasonal.
During a visit to Bangkok and Phuket a few years ago, I was very impressed by the high gastronomic level of not only the hotels where we stayed, but everyday restaurants and even roadside food stands. And talking about interesting Thai cuisine, Thailand’s floating markets are an essential part of Thai life that offer a very tasty insight to the local cooking expertise … where you get to buy lunch from a boat while floating on a canal or a river.
Khlong Lat Mayom is the floating market I was first exposed to in Bangkok. Tourists are a distinct minority there. It’s a medium-sized market located very close to the city. The market is famous for its cooked food. What makes it stand out is a variety of dishes such as som tam, pork satay, and barbecued pork ribs, plus charcoal-grilled cuttlefish and grilled or fried shrimp.
Most of the larger cities have Chinatowns and dim-sum, the lovely bite-sized steamed buns and dumplings (baozi) served for tea lunch. Even in the countryside, there were roadside stands offering dim sum to hungry travelers for little money. After we departed Bangkok, our lunch-time mantra became “dim-sum in 30 minutes!”
Traditional Thai cooking is perfumed and dominated by lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and juice, spring onions (scallions), garlic, bird’s eye chili, fish sauce, tamarind sauce, coriander, cardamom, and galangal – a member of the ginger family. The average proteins are chicken, fish, seafood, duck, pork (in the non-Muslim areas), eggs, and small amounts of lamb. Noodles and tofu are also present in many Chinese-inspired dishes. Beef is used minimally.
Jasmine rice is served with most of the dishes, relying on the flavors of the dishes themselves. Many of these are curries, and there are 6 curry paste varieties: red, yellow, green, sour, massamun, and phanang.
Coconut milk and coconut cream are used in large quantities, as the soups and curries that encompass many of the classic dishes have coconut milk as a main ingredient. Occasionally, tamarind juice is substituted. Nuts like peanuts or cashews are sometimes included in the dishes.
For a foodie, a visit to Thailand is a must. Avoid April to mid-May, however, when heat and humidity are at the highest. They say that Bangkok has only three seasons: hot, hotter, and hottest.
While the Songkran (New Year’s) celebrations that usually happen in April can offer a very interesting experience, the best time to visit is November until early March, when the heat abides and the humidity drops.
Manos Angelakis is one of the founders, the former Managing Editor for 25 years, the current Managing Editor Emeritus, and Senior Food & Wine Writer of LuxuryWeb Magazine. He is an accomplished travel writer, photographer, and food and wine critic based in Hackensack, New Jersey. As a travel writer, he has written extensively about numerous cities and countries. Manos has also been certified as a Tuscan Wine Master and has traveled to wine-producing areas in order to evaluate firsthand the product of top-rated vineyards. In the past year, he has visited and written multiple articles about Morocco, Turkey, Quebec City, Switzerland, Antarctica, and most recently the South of France. Articles in other publications include Vision Times and Epoch Times.
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