Thailand Confidential

by Jerry Hopkins

  It wasn’t until I moved to Thailand and built a home in a small village in the northeast that I learned how truly wonderful cooking this way could be. Here I was reconnected to the past by my genetic mealtime memory, transported back to pre-industrial times, and to countless millennia earlier, to the basic yet subtle succulence of cooking at its simplest and most eloquent over wood.

  In time, wood became increasingly expensive and hard to find in many places, and for a while coal took its place. Coal was easier to store than wood and often easier to get, and it left less ash, but coal fires were as smoky as wood fires and more toxic, releasing dangerous pollutants into the air. Then came gas and electricity and nothing was the same again. If you lived in a modern city in the West, wood and coal fires—for heating as well as cooking—by the mid-1900s were banished in the name of convenience and health. But not so, yet, in much of the world.

  Today, cooking over wood remains so pervasive it’s blamed for deforestation, as poor villagers roam farther from home to find combustible fuel. Illegal logging and other environmental abuse, together with rampant development, are responsible for much greater loss, of course. No matter how the argument rages, in the foreseeable future for tens of millions of people, wood will remain the kitchen fuel of choice because it is the only affordable one.

  In Thailand, and in most “developing” nations today, there are several ways of cooking over a wood fire. One of the most basic involves placing three large rocks (cement building blocks will suffice) in a triangular pattern, building a wood fire in the middle and balancing the metal pan or grill on top of the rocks. Other country cooks own a clay, portable cooker, or brazier, that serves the same purpose, with wood or charcoal set alight beneath a metal grill or metalware placed on top. Many insist that only a charcoal or wood fire can provide the desired heat for certain dishes and keep a small brazier in use long after acquiring a gas or electric stove. In my apartment building in Bangkok, the Thai family next door has one of these on the balcony. Many others are used by vendors cooking food on city streets.

  At a recent new year celebration at my home in rural Isan, the men in the family slaughtered and butchered a hundred-kilogram pig, throwing the first slabs of meat directly onto the coals of a large, open wood fire nearby, turning them with a stick, precisely as it was done in prehistoric times. After a few minutes, the hot flesh was retrieved from the coals, sluiced with water to remove the ash, then cut with a machete into bite-sized chunks and served with a chili, garlic, green onion and fish sauce dip.

  Meanwhile, the women took other butchered cuts and prepared them over four more wood fires. One was for boiling the pig’s feet and head in a large pot, another for grilling, a third for stir-frying bits of pork with fresh-cut vegetables, the last for deep-frying strips of skin and fat. The succulent odor of the cooking flesh blew every which way in the shifting breeze, bubbles of grease so small they were invisible, blending with the smoke in a fashion that made me think, “Hey, capture this scent, bottle it, and sell it as an after-shave!”

  The women moved swiftly among us as the various dishes were ready, and we helped ourselves with our fingers and cheap metal spoons. While the men ladled a sweet, milky, home-brewed rice whisky into a cup that was passed from hand to hand.

  I asked why the gas stove I’d purchased for the house wasn’t being used. Gas was dangerous, my Thai family said; the tank of propane connected umbilically to the stove was, rightly, regarded as a potential bomb. Besides, the women said, they preferred to cook over fuel they knew, trusted and could see.

  Thus, wood smoke is now for me and tens of millions more living in Thailand’s countryside, the first sizzling scent of the day, as much a part of the dawning as the rooster’s cry, an essential prelude to a steaming bowl of rice soup, or grilled chicken, or, during the rainy season when the rice paddies flood, plump frog.

  On the Eat-a-Bug Trail in Bangkok

  When visiting Thailand, go see the Grand Palace and spend an hour in a longtailed boat touring the river and canals. Visit the Jim Thompson House and take in an evening’s ritualistic brutality at one of the city’s kickboxing stadiums. Explore a dazzling Buddhist temple or Brahman shrine and be sure to get a traditional Thai massage. And by all means, go shopping.

  Then eat some of the people’s food: insects.

  Admittedly, it’s not for everyone. When my daughter, Erin, a first grade teacher in California, visited me in Bangkok and I suggested she try some of the deep-fried crickets, grasshoppers, beetles, silkworm larva and scorpions commonly sold on the street, she said, “Dad, you’re more adventurous than I am. I won’t eat anything that’s cute or disgusting.”

  She was talking about what the creatures looked like when alive. Dogs and rabbits were cute, so she wouldn’t eat them, and insects were disgusting. She was unmoved when I quoted an eighteenth century writer, Jonathan Swift, who said it was “a brave man who first ate an oyster.”

  “Look,” I went on, without result, “you eat lobster and crab, don’t you? They’re pretty ugly. And when you think about it, chickens are weird looking, too.”

  The truth is, I told my daughter, who was beginning to wander off to look at the counterfeit designer jeans on offer nearby, insects are eaten in much of the world, and not just as a quirky treat—like the chocolate-covered ants I ate when I was in college—or for lack of money or anything else to eat. In Asia, Africa and Latin America, insects are not merely endured but enjoyed. In parts of southern Africa when the mopane “worms”—caterpillars, really—come into season, the sale of animal meat actually drops.

  And, I went on like a professor whose class you wish would end, the cattle industry is destroying the environment. Rain forests are being torn down to create grazing land. Did you know, I asked, that nearly all the soy grown is to feed livestock? And that according to the World Bank, the average cow in Europe was subsidized to the tune of US$2.50 a day? Besides that, insects were higher in protein and lower in fat. United Nations studies in Africa and Mexico showed insects had seventy percent protein, compared to fifteen per cent in steak.

  My daughter said, “Um-hum.” She now had her eye on some “cool” sunglasses.

  That doesn’t happen in Thailand, I went on. But of all the places in the world—even in Colombia, where there is a statue of an ant in recognition of its place in the local diet—nowhere outside Thailand were insects prepared and consumed with such year-round regularity and delight. I explained that most of the insects consumed were eaten in the northeastern region, called Isan, and that when residents of this area migrated to Bangkok looking for work they brought their cuisine with them. Yes, I said, it was true that Isan was the poorest region of Thailand, but even when the migrant workers had money in their pockets, they returned faithfully to the insect vendors.

  I admitted that there were some insects I had trouble with at first. One was the giant water bug because it looked like a cockroach. Then one day when I met a Thai friend at an outdoor beer bar she had a bag of them. I knew my moment of truth had come.

  “Have one,” she said. It wasn’t a question. So she showed me how to pick off the head and legs and peel away the carapace to get to the abdominal sack which much to my surprise contained a kernel of delight. Not only did it taste good, its fragrance was such that I learned it was routinely pounded in a mortar with garlic and chilis and fish sauce for use as a spicy dip for other foods. I bought a sack and said, “Erin, you’ve got to try one. You’ll really love it. You used to like boiled peanuts when we lived in Hawaii. This tastes sort of like boiled cashews, with a bit of fishy aftertaste. And it smells like flowers.”

  “Dad,” she groaned, “are you trying to make me sick?”

  So I let a couple of days pass before taking her to a restaurant called Bane Lao in Bangkok’s Sukhumvit district, a place as its name implies where the cuisine of Laos is lovingly prepared and served.

  “Oh, look,” I said, after we’d been seated, “they have ant egg salad.”

  My da
ughter rolled her eyes and laughed. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  I pointed to another dish on the menu. “Okay,” I said, “would you rather have the beef lips?”

  I never did get Erin to eat a bug, but I’m happy to report that more and more foreigners appear to be trying them, and it’s a darned good thing, too. Because it’s the food of the future. As any environmentalist and scientist will attest, the time is fast approaching when cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats—the four leading sources of the world’s protein today—will be so cost inefficient as to be unaffordable by anyone except the very wealthy.

  Cows consume lots of fodder and water and require much time and effort to produce a single hamburger, whereas insects require little room, don’t eat much and breed like crazy. As I explained the food-of-the-future thing to Erin, I assured her the bugs wouldn’t show up on her plate looking like grasshoppers and scorpions.

  “Think bug burgers,” I said, cheerily, without any noticeable effect.

  Thai Fire

  In Thailand, where restaurants rate their dishes by placing one, two, three and sometimes four little red chilis on the menu next to the dishes’ names to alert diners, I am tolerated. Barely. A longtime friend, who is a Thai chef, used to bring home food purchased at street stalls and as she placed it on the table, she pointed to one container and said, “Mine,” then to another, saying, “Yours.” As if to say, “Poor dear.”

  Chili peppers are not exclusively Thai, but I can’t imagine life in Thailand without them. Thailand cannot claim to be the birthplace of the Capsicum —the chili was imported, along with much else in the national diet—it only acts as if it does. Surely, the per capita consumption of the small, fiery fruit is as high or higher than anywhere else.

  The truth is, it’s an international phenomenon. There’s even a bi-monthly magazine published in the United States, Chile Pepper (there is no agreement on the spelling), and a wide variety of products is available, including pepper-shaped wind chimes, bells, and strings of Christmas tree lights. There is a Hot Sauce Club of America, where members receive two new hot sauces and a newsletter every month. There’s even a popular American rock and roll band that calls itself the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Yes, the band is hot.

  Chilis are hot because they contain capsaicin (pronounced cap-SAY-a-sin), an irritant alkaloid found mostly in the interior tissue to which the seeds adhere. (Thus, removing the seeds helps lower the temperature.) Capsaicin has at least five separate chemical components: three delivering an immediate kick to the throat at the back of the palate, two others conveying a slower, longer-lasting, and less fierce heat on the tongue and mid-palate. Mmm-mmmmmm-mmm, say my Thai friends, who have had decades to get used to it.

  I still think deliberately eating something that creates discomfort, even extreme pain, is strange. The names of the sauces found primarily in markets in the Southwestern United States say all that needs to be said: “2-Hot 2-Trot Sensual Seasonings,” “Inferno,” “Tejas Tears Habanero Sauce” (“Hot Enough to Make You Cry”), “Chili Bob’s Mean Mother,” “Satan’s Revenge” and “Mad Dog Liquid Fire.”

  I mean, why would anyone in his or her right mind want to add that to dinner or lunch?

  Actually, some varieties of the Capsicum frutecens are quite mild and sweet, but many can only be called hot or fiery. Belonging to the same family as the tomato and the eggplant, they were introduced in Europe by (some say) Christopher Columbus or early Portuguese explorers, originating either in the Caribbean or Brazil. Magellan is credited with taking chili peppers to Africa, the Portuguese with taking them to Asia.

  Today, chili peppers play a significant role in many cuisines— from Mexico, where they are used in ragouts and sauces ( moles), to the Middle East where they are pickled whole, to North Africa where they are used to season couscous with garlic. More chili is added to South Indian curries, while the Chinese make a purée called ra-yiu that is mostly oil-based, with fried soya bean and chili as additional incredients. So popular is chili in China that each province has its own brand.

  Koreans use a chili paste to make kimchee and hot spicy soup. In Singapore, chili sauce must include garlic and ginger. In Malaysia and Indonesia, it is called sambal and often includes shrimp or dried fish. In Thailand, only a short walk from my flat, there are street vendors mixing and selling som tam, a five-alarm green papaya salad with lime juice and tomato and as many chopped peppers as you can stand; this dish once was a staple for the poor in Thailand’s impoverished northeast, but nowadays it’s hard to find a Thai menu anywhere worldwide that doesn’t include it.

  In Hawaii, “chili peppa water,” which is a blend of what it sounds like, is found on every local restaurant table next to the pepper and salt. Throughout the United States chili pepper sauce has a large following, mainly through the sale of Tabasco sauce, manufactured in Louisiana and sold in tiny bottles internationally, and is used to season meat, egg and red kidney bean dishes, sauces and a number of cocktails, including the ever-fashionable Bloody Mary. Not long ago, for a year or so, chili sauce even out-sold ketchup in the States.

  Just as different ingredients are added to the peppers from place to place, there are widely varying ways of preparing the sauces. Tabasco is fermented in barrels for three years or longer, while in Thailand, the major ingredients—chili, flour and tomato paste—are merely blended together and there is no fermentation involved. Tabasco tastes somewhat sourer and, in fact, is hotter. It’s in the use of unprocessed, fresh, ripe chilis where Thailand rings all the loudest bells. Thais also like their sauce free-flowing, where in other countries around the region, the thicker and slower, the better.

  Chili peppers should not be confused with pepper, by the way. Pepper, black or white, is produced by grinding the seeds, finely or coarsely, of plants of the specie Piper, while chilis are fruits. The chili peppers are the smaller of the two primary types (the other variety is sweet and of no concern here) and they can be green, yellow, orange, red, or black. The smaller the pepper, the hotter it is. In fact, the hottest is the Capsicum minimum, indicating that somewhere in the academic realm where plants are given Latin names there was a botanist with a sense of humor. In Thailand, these are commonly called prik kee noo, politely translated as “mouse droppings peppers” after their half- to three-quarter-inch length and suggestive shapes. Noo being the word for mouse or rat, and kee being the word for you know what.

  Despite this scornful imagery, chili peppers are now believed to be a possible medical miracle. Not only does the consumption of a single pepper provide a full day’s supply of beta-carotene and nearly twice the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C for an adult, but also that magic ingredient called capsaicin, a compound found in the vegetable that controls pain and makes you feel better. What’s that? Makes me feel better?

  Consider what happens when you bite into a chili pepper. You think you have Shock and Awe in your mouth, with smart (and dumb) bombs going off from lips to gums to tongue and throat. You’re certain that your taste buds have been defoliated. You break into a sweat and reach for your water glass to put out the fire. (A futile exercise, because capsaicin is barely soluble in water. Best thing is to drink milk because casein, one of the proteins in milk, specifically and directly counteracts the effects of capsaicin. Others swear by water mixed with a dash of salt.) Your eyes water and your nasal passages flood. You entertain evil thoughts about the chef and even Christopher Columbus.

  At the same time, there may come a strange relief, a beneficial side effect. The messages sent to your brain are similar to those which mark pain and the brain responds to these by stimulating the secretion of extra endorphins, natural opiates that give pleasure. The endorphins then sooth or reduce existing pain not only in the mouth, but also throughout the body.

  So far, studies suggest capsaicin reduces pain associated with arthritis, diabetes, muscle and joint problems, cluster headaches and phantom limbs. A study done at the famed Mayo Clinic in the U.S. further suggests that it reduces
pain from post-surgical scars. Thus, many people who suffer from chronic pain are now being advised to eat spicy food, either as an alternative or as a supplement to analgesics. It is, then, quite literally, fighting fire with fire.

  Chili peppers possess other medicinal advantages. They alleviate symptoms of the common cold by breaking up congestion and keeping the airways clear. (Did you notice that your nose and eyes started running when you broke out in that initial sweat? A capsaicin nose spray is now being considered to relieve headaches and migraines.) Chili peppers also increase your metabolic rate, contributing to the success of a weight-loss program, contain an anti-oxidant that lowers the “bad” cholesterol, and scientists at the famed Max Planck Institute in Germany confirm Capsicum can prevent the formation of blood clots by lengthening the time it takes blood to coagulate.

  If that isn’t enough to convert you—I’m beginning to think about heading for the nearest som tam street vendor as soon as I finish writing this—there is growing evidence that chili peppers will get you “high.” According to Dr. Paul Rozin, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania in the U.S. who has conducted several studies of the chili pepper, the comparison to opiates is not misplaced, although, unlike addictive morphine, a narcotic derived from opium, says “this is a natural and harmless high.”

  My Thai chef friend, who is reading over my shoulder as I write this, is calling me the Thai equivalent of wimp. She keeps a jar of dried seeds in my kitchen and casually dumps them into soups and onto noodle and rice dishes in a manner that seems suicidal.