Back for Seconds

In case I haven’t sold you yet on Som Tam Sawng Nuu, I want to give you a quick run-down of the Isan food highlights.  Truth be told, some of this was originally part of my last blog entry, but I know that my stories can get a little *ahem* long-winded every now and then, so I decided to spare you for once and break the entry up into more manageable bites (pun entirely intended).  So, if my first post about Som Tam Sawng Nuu left you hungry (yup, still intended) for more, here’s a second helping 🙂

STICKY RICE:

Let’s begin with the basics.  When I am dining in the States, the bread basket is the seductress that temps me into culinary adultery.  I may have made a date with a beautiful, pink and juicy filet mignon (and let’s face it, a hot dish like that will always take longer getting ready), and I swear my intentions are sincere.  But once that warm, aromatic bread basket is placed in front of me, I’m a goner.  “Just a half a roll to curb my appetite” turns into a full helping of bread, turns into two helpings, and I turn into a two-timing food philanderer.

I know I am not the only American who turns into a raging cheater every time the bread basket comes around… you know you do it too.  Well, my friends, sticky rice is to Thailand as the bread basket is to America.  How carbs are so comforting and irresistible, I will never understand.  They just have this way about them.

Like I said in my last post, Som Tam Sawng Nuu specializes in Isan food– food from the northeast region of Thailand.  One of the best things about Isan food is that sticky rice, kaao niaw, is a staple.  I eat rice in Thailand everyday– steamed rice, fried rice, occasionally some rice porridge… but sticky rice is a whole different animal (well… you know what I mean).  It is a long grain rice and cooked to the perfect al dente so that you can pick it up in a big clump with your fingers and mold it into a lovely little ball o’ carbs to dip into all kinds of goodness.  Last week I went out to eat at Som Tam with some co-workers and was surprised to see some of the women NOT indulging in the sticky rice.  Turns out Thai women are not so different from American women– avoiding the carbs to maintain their dainty figures.  I know I need to learn some self-control myself, but I am too easily seduced to call things off with sticky rice.

STICKY RICE

SOM TAM:

Spicy papaya salad.  The namesake of the outfit in question.  Choosing a favorite food in a country so rich in flavor is a tall order, but it is with little hesitation that I say som tam, and more specifically Dton’s som tam, has stolen my heart and taste-buds to boot.  Som Tam Thai, the traditional version, includes shredded, unripe green papaya, long beans, tomatoes, chili peppers, peanuts, lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, (and probably plenty of other indispensable, albeit undetectable, ingredients).  In the case of Sawng Nuu, sweet and delicious tamarind is added, freshly ground that morning.  The makings are all mixed and pounded [not quite] to a pulp with a mortar and pestle, and are of course served with sticky rice to soak up the spicy, sweet, and sour juices.  The juice is so delicious, in fact, that once the table’s supply of sticky rice has run out, I start slurping up the juice straight from my spoon (I care very little about table manners here in Thailand).  I shamefully await the day when I will  pour the remaining juices straight from the plate into my mouth… it is only a matter of time.

There are many  derivatives of the classic som tam. Dton’s restaurant offers a refreshing cucumber som tam, a green mango som tam, a fruit salad-esque som tam, som tam with crab or shrimp… and a few related dishes that we farangs never care to brave, such as the “stinky fish,” “salty egg,” and the bug-infested varieties.  I’ve tried the cucumber, mango, fruit salad, and crab and they are lovely, to be sure, but I am a som tam purist all the way.

SOM TAM THAI

NUA (and muu) DAET DIAO:

Daet diao is the ultimate bar snack.  Sun-dried beef (nua) or pork (muu) that is salted and fried, served with Thai sweet chili sauce.  It is tough and chewy and salty and delicious and so unhealthy, I know, but I’ve adopted a theory here that if I never step on scales in Thailand, anyways, then calories and fat don’t exist.  Regardless, this stuff is worth it.  The nua is my favorite.

Walking around the daytime markets, daet diao might turn a germ-o-phobe farang’s stomach.  You see the meat laid out on straw baskets on the side of the road for hours in the sunshine, collecting flies and other bugs I’m sure.  It is a pretty disagreeable sight, but, again, it is just too good to pass up.  And, as we decided over dinner last night, while this may not get a stamp of approval from any health inspector in the United States, there are plenty of unhealthy preservatives and hormones that we feed our bodies everyday.  Thailand might serve daet diao that was once a “meating” ground for bugs, but maybe this is still better than some of what we eat in the U.S.  Maybe?

NUA DAET DIAO

PLAA SAAM ROT:

A beautiful, golden brown fried red snapper that is crunchy on the outside, soft and succulent on the inside, and drenched with a delightfully sweet tamarind sauce.  It is called “Three flavor fish,” and I’m not really quite sure what those other two flavors are except to say 1) mouth-watering and 2) divine.  And, as always, the Saam Rot sauce makes the perfect companion for that ever-seductive sticky rice.

PLAA SAAM ROT

Are you convinced yet?  There are many other delicious dishes at Som Tam Sawng Nuu but these are the tops.  I am curious to go to a Thai restaurant in the states and see how well-represented some of this food is, or if they have it at all.  I’ve definitely seen spicy papaya salad on menus in the U.S. but I had never ordered it before.  Your homework: go to a Thai restaurant, try to order one of these dishes, and report back.  At the very least, maybe you can get your hands on some sticky rice!

destruction.

Love and Papaya Salad

Ally, posing as "an American" for my "nationalities" slideshow

Allow me to introduce you to Allyson Hauss.  I’ve mentioned her before, but consider this your formal meeting.  Ally is another teacher from the States, working in the Sa-Nguan Ying English Program.  She came to Suphan just over 2 years ago, shortly after graduating college, through the same agency that found me my teaching position.  One day, while studying Thai, she met a young Thai lad who offered to help her.  As Ally’s Thai vocabulary grew, so did their love for each other.  She has been living in Thailand, teaching at SYEP, dating Dton, and helping out his family by serving tables at their restaurant ever since.

Moral of the story: Ally (or her Thailand story, rather) is my parents’ worst nightmare.

Last night Ally called our ever- trusty and reliable “Uncle Tuk-Tuk” and my Suphan friends and I piled in to head out to dinner at Dton’s restaurant.  Som Tam Sawng Nuu (Two Young Mens’ Spicy Papaya Salad) is located just a bit outside of muang Suphanburi, so it is a painless 10-20 baht tuk-tuk ride to satisfy our weekly som tam cravings.  They specialize in Isan fare– food from Northeastern Thailand– and though I have yet to make my way to this more uncharted region of the kingdom, rumor has it that Dton’s food can easily compete with the lot of it.  It is without a doubt the best food I’ve tasted in all of my Thailand travels.

Megan and SOM TAM!

Beyond their many delicious dishes that keep us coming back for more, I love visiting the restaurant becuase it feels like home away from home.  I have only been in Thailand for two months, and when I try to communicate with Dton’s family, my Tinglish is no better than with any other Thai folk (perhaps Tingrades would be a better term… Thai-English-Charades).  But still, their friendly smiles light up each time we pull up in Uncle T’s chariot, and that alone feels like home.

Dton will sit down with us while we eat for a mini Thai lesson and to assign homework (I had to learn the days of the week for yesterday).  Baby Aut is always running around like he owns the place.  Dirty as he is, his smile and laughter and giant head charm us all.  The restaurant is his playground, his kingdom, and we are all but his doting subjects.  And Dton’s mother has a nickname for me– “Gii-ka-Poo,” referring to a supposedly Thai phenomenon that says when you drink too much soda, the bubbles all rise to your head and your hair goes “POOF!”  That is how my hair got this way- didn’t you know?

Aut!

Aut!

Aut!

On Thanksgiving Dton’s family welcomed us to their restaurant for a feast of American fare.  And by welcomed us, I mean they let us completely take over.  Turkey is hard to come by in Thailand, and ovens even harder, so instead of the traditional feast it was burgers and pasta salad on this Thanksgiving Day.  Dton’s brother helped us to hack up filets of beef, garlic, and onions into home-ground hamburg meat (ground beef= another thing you can’t find here), as we chopped veggies for our make-shift pasta salad with the help of his mom and various other relations.  Then, Dton’s pa grilled our burgers for us as karaoke was set-up and the song-and-dance party commenced.  And last night, I “helped” Dton in the kitchen.  It was an interactive vocabulary lesson, really, as I squished my hands into a bowl of raw chicken wing-tips and some floury liquid concoction to prepare it for the frying pan.

burgers from scratch

Preparing our "Thanksgiving" feast with the help of Dton's family

Today, it is only four days until Christmas, and as thrilled as I am to be living in Thailand and having this incredible and challenging and eye-opening experience, I miss my family terribly.  I received a package from home last night, and was moved to tears to find in it photo copies of all of the letters that Santa wrote my four siblings and I from my first Christmas, on (Santa keeps threatening to retire but that big old softy keeps coming back with more!).  It was the most wonderful gift I could have ever hoped to receive so far from home, but it made me miss my family sorely.  As always, Som Tam Sawng Nuu was right there when I needed it.  There is no substitution for my own family, but just to be around a family made me feel a little closer to home.  I wish more than anything to be able to hug my parents this holiday.  At heart I am always their Christie Bug, but for now I will be grateful for the journey that I am on, and settle for Gii-ka-Poo.

Ode to the Pineapple

You, sapero,
are a god
among fruits.
Each day
I walk
anxiously
home from school
waiting for
the moment.
The moment
when I will know
once
and for all
if my dreams
of sweet
tangy
piquant
juices
will come
to true
fruition.
Your
heavy armored
clothes,
your
treasure troll
haircut,
disguising your

sunshine

yellow,

sweet innocence,

and coy,

exotic edge.

.

Oh,
beloved Fruit
Lady!
She who

wears

the red

and white

striped

sun bonnet!

She who

serves me

pineapple

from her

motorbike

ice box!

She, who,

for a mere

twenty baht

will hew

divinity

and present

it to me

in

a plastic bag!

.

Sapero,

my
tongue
always misses you,
always

remembers.
Your tart juices
leave it parched
wanting more.

.

.

(Inspired by Pablo Neruda’s Ode to the Apple, pg 99, and by the Fruit Lady)

Sapero topped with sugar, salt, chili blend. SO GOOD!

Chan phuut paa-saa tai nit-noi :)

I speak the Thai language a little.

And I can say some things that don’t have to do with food. 🙂  I can answer some common questions that the ever-curious Thai people ask in passing, such as “Where are you going?” “Have you eaten yet?” and “Do you have a boyfriend?”  I can identify a slew of office supplies.  I can even differentiate between a pen and a wrist watch (nii naa-li-gaa ruu bpaak-gaa: Is this a watch or a pen?)!  We’re talking really critical stuff here.  You can imagine how meaningful my “conversations” are.

But, meaning is the goal.

Before coming to Thailand, I did not plan to shoot for any manner of expertise in the Thai language.  Enough basic Thai to get by in the day-to-day, of course, but I didn’t see myself accomplishing much more than that.  It isn’t that I don’t appreciate the value in learning a new language– fluency in Spanish is a long-term goal of mine.  But, to be completely honest, there isn’t really much of a world market for Thai.  Where, and when, on Earth would I ever need Thai if not right here and now, in Thailand?  How would knowing Thai, of all languages, be of any benefit to my life?  Spanish, well that makes sense.  Upwards of 40 million people in the U.S. speak Spanish, and we all know that it’s a hot ticket item on a resume.  But Thai?  Not really.  And add to that that Thai looks like this: จะทำได้อย่างไรฉันอ่านเรื่องนี้,  and has sounds and tones that my poor, clumsy native-English tongue had never once had to summon… the intimidation factor hits the top of the thermometer on the clap-o-meter.

I think that this is what my apathy really came down to– intimidation.  Looking at that Thai script, thinking about those rising and falling, high, low, and mid-tones, Thai seemed so far beyond my reach… and maybe not worth the “Go-Go Gadget arm!” button.  Better not to set myself up for failure.

But here I am, in Thailand, and it occurs to me that I didn’t uproot my life and fly halfway around the world for easy-breezey stagnancy.  I am here to feed my spirit, my khwan, but also to challenge and push myself in ways that I haven’t  before.  I don’t want to just be a tourist in this country– putting in my time on the weekdays, then gallivanting off to this city or that beach or those monkeys to snap a few pictures and say I’ve seen Thailand.  I want to develop new roots while I am here in Suphan, and I want to be able to connect in a real and meaningful way with the Thai people whose paths I cross on this journey.  Something beyond where am I going, and have I eaten yet, and do I have a boyfriend.

And now, I think can do it.  I have a long way to go, to be certain, but I am inspired by my friends here in Suphan who have learned to speak Thai, and I’ve gotten over being intimidated.  Thai grammar is actually super basic… it is really just the pronunciation that tricks you up.  I could go to the market in search of a T-shirt, but end up asking for a tiger instead.  And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked a student “omelette?” (khai jiaw) instead of “do you understand?” (khow jai), but I just laugh, mai bpen rai it, and move on.

I am SO eager to learn Thai and to, someday, be able to really connect with this kingdom and her people in a meaningful way.  I feel like I made some progress this past weekend when my friend Megan and I went to Khao Yai National Park.  In between gibbon-spotting and tree-climbing, we enjoyed probing our guide, guesthouse staff, and fellow travelers on the names of animals, clothing, dog shit, and whatever else sparked our interests along the way.  My conversations with these people were still very basic mixes of Thai and English (Tinglish), but the Thai people are so very appreciative of a farang’s efforts with their language that you can’t help but feel satisfied with yourself for trying.  They find it narak maak (very lovely/ sweet), and for now, even that makes our small interactions meaningful.

Maybe learning Thai won’t give my resume a boost, maybe it won’t serve me at all in the future, but I am here in Thailand to seize the day, and the here and now is important.  Not everything has to be part of a grand plan.  Not everything has to be a means to another end.  In a way, I think that this makes Thai an even more worthwhile pursuit.  It is for me, and for my own growth, and a way to connect to a culture, and to bring as much meaning to this experience as I possibly can.  

Chan bpen noc-rian paa-saa tai.