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The humble dish is on the verge of global superstardom
• Published: 4/05/2014 at 06:04 AM
• Newspaper section: Brunch
When you want to eat a quick Thai meal, there are plenty of choices. All kinds of noodle soup dishes, khao man gai (Hainanese chicken and rice), khao moo daeng (rice with Chinese red pork and sauce), kui tio rad na (rice noodles topped with meat, gravy and vegetables) and kui tio pad see iew (rice noodles stir-fried with black soya sauce), for starters.
EASY ENTREE: Above and below, curries are a gateway to the delicious world of Thai cuisine.
Then there are the made-to-order favourites such as fried rice and pad bai kraphrao (meat stir-fried with fresh basil and chillies). But one quick-meal dish that can’t be overlooked is khao kaeng (curry with rice). Its convenience, low price and ability to make an easy and satisfying meal have made it so familiar that its importance and history are often overlooked.
In Thailand, curries have spread through the different parts of the country and been adapted to different environments. Cooks who prepared regional curries have passed the recipes down and preserved their local character. I believe that in the future, Thai khao kaeng dishes will help the whole world to understand Thailand’s food culture.
The term “khao kaeng” itself reflects the nature of Thai food culture. Rice (khao) is a Thai staple, and there are a great number of dishes that are eaten with it. Yum dishes (sour-spicy salads) and yang dishes (grilled foods) are some of the “dry” ones — served without sauce or broth — and tom recipes (boiled dishes), lon (a coconut cream-based sauce eaten with fresh vegetables and fish) and kaeng (curries and soups) are among the liquid ones.
Kaeng dishes combine a whole spectrum of tastes — spicy/hot, sour, salty and sweet — and have ingredients that can include vegetables, fruit and many kinds of meat. When served with rice, the two make a perfect pair.
In the past, most Thais cooked at home. In a typical household, the mother had the authority inside the house and in the kitchen, and the children, both boys and girls, had to help her with the cooking. Their duties included grating coconut, squeezing out the coconut cream, pounding curry paste and peeling and cutting vegetables, as well as measuring out quantities of ingredients as instructed by their mother.
The children absorbed their mother’s preferences and cooking techniques over time. Girls were often closer to their mothers than boys were, so more of this kitchen knowledge was usually transmitted to them, but many men also have good cooking skills passed on to them by their mothers.
Almost all housewives attached great importance to putting food into monks’ begging bowls when they made their morning rounds, and felt that the food given to them had to be the best. They saw its preparation as an important responsibility that brought them great satisfaction. The food to be eaten with rice was prepared on the previous evening and the rice itself was cooked before dawn. When the monks paddled up to each household, the food was placed in a bowl set in the boats. Monks who made their rounds on foot would be accompanied by a novice who carried the bowl and received the offering.
In Isan, only khao niao (sticky rice), hand-pressed into bite-sized balls, was put into the monks’ bowls. The curries and other food to be eaten with it were prepared by individual households on a rotating basis and brought directly to the temple, with grandmothers and other elderly female family relatives taking responsibility to distribute it to the monks for their morning and midday meals. Monks in every part of Thailand knew which families made the tastiest food.
Changes that have taken place both in the repertoire of Thai curries and the way in which they are made and eaten have been caused largely by differences in the natural and cultural environment. Commercially made and sold khao kaeng came onto the scene when Thais began working outside the home more widely, especially when women who had formerly been housewives started taking jobs outside.
At first, cooks would make food and deliver it to private homes in the portable arrangement of stacked bowls and dishes called a pinto. Customers would order a selection of foods, including curries, usually for the evening meal.
The pinto business boomed, but it had its drawbacks. Customers could become bored with the sameness of the flavours and selection of foods brought by a single cook. When people pay for their meals they usually like a choice of dishes and a variety of flavours. As a result, khao kaeng, or curry and rice restaurants appeared.
Customers could eat their food there or take it home, and this style of eating became even more popular with the arrival of new packaging including plastic bags and foam boxes. Restaurants, stalls and pushcarts selling khao kaeng proliferated until they were operating on almost every street, doing business from early morning until well into the evening.
Today, they are popular with everyone because customers waiting for service can choose their favourites from the array of curries and other dishes set out in pots and on trays. They can buy them either in small bowls together with a plate of rice, or poured over the rice to make a one-dish meal. Two or three different choices can be served over the rice, making a meal that is delicious and satisfying. Another attraction is that the prices charged in khao kaeng restaurants have never shot up the way they have with other kinds of food.
The cooks who make khao kaeng for sale have usually learned their recipes, including those for special, regional dishes not widely available, from their mothers or other older relatives. These different kinds of dishes, together with the fresh ingredients and seasonings needed to make them properly, have been passed down through the generations.
Every locality in Thailand has its own culinary identity, each different from the others. For example, the curries made in Phetchaburi are in the Central region style, but use special seafood ingredients of their own because the province has a long coastline.
There we can find kaeng khua sabparot sai hoy malaeng poo tak haeng (a coconut cream curry made with fresh pineapple and sun-dried mussels), kaeng khua bai chakhraam kap poo ma (made with a broom-like herb that grows near the sea and sea crab), pla tu tom kap madan (mackerel stewed with the smooth, sour green fruit called madan in Thai), and yum hoy khraeng sai mamuang dip lae maphrao khua (a sour-chilli hot salad made with cockles, raw green mango and pan-toasted shredded coconut).
Southern specialities include kaeng tai pla (a very hot curry made with fermented fish innards), kaeng lueang (a spicier relative of Central Thai kaeng som), and khua kling (a searingly hot minced meat dish) made with either pork or beef. All can be had in versions that differ from province to province, so that a bowlful made in Songkhla will not be the same in terms of flavour and spiciness as one served in Trang or Surat Thani.
Some dishes native to the North are kaeng ho (a dry curry originally made from leftovers), kaeng khae (a vegetable soup-like dish), larb khua (a gently stir-fried, seasoned chopped meat dish), and yam khanoon awn (a pounded dish made from unripe jackfruit). The dishes eaten in Mae Hong Son, however, are different from those eaten in other northern provinces. Each of these regional cooking styles, with their curries, has been passed down through the generations and taken its own form.
The final reason that I believe khao kaeng will become increasingly widely known and gain popularity throughout the world is that a growing list of Thai dishes have already established themselves abroad.
Prio wan dishes made with chicken or shrimp are already internationally popular, as are kaeng khio wan made with beef or chicken and phanaeng nuea (a thick, coconut cream curry-like dish made with beef).
Maybe khanom jeen nam ya will be the next Thai dish to appear widely on overseas menus, or haw mok (fish and herbs steamed in curried coconut custard), tod mon pla (deep-fried fishcakes), or pla chon pad prik kaeng (snakehead fish stir-fried with chillies and seasonings).
No one can deny that each of these dishes is rich in both flavour and character, and that any favour they find abroad will be well deserved. There are many more just as delicious, each capable of drawing the world’s attention to the matchless diversity of Thailand’s cuisine.
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