Up-close with Galangal and Kafir Limes: Cooking Class in Thailand

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Thailand is fantastic. That’s simply a fact. If you are a foodie, a nature lover, a history buff, an adventure seeker, or a bargain hunter--Thailand is the place for you.

Pierce and I fall into a little of each category, but we openly admit that we mostly travel for food. Amid bouts of chai withdraw (I have inexplicable headaches for the first two days in Thailand), I think more and more that we went to India simply because we love Indian food--and I am ok with that.

I also think that life in Seattle has prepared us well for this trip. Thanks to Seattle’s ubiquitous Thai restaurants, we are more knowledgeable about curry than the average traveler. “Pad Thai, please” and “Pad Kee Mao, please” roll off our tongues with ease as we bounce from street stall to street stall--slowly sampling our way down Khao San Road in Bangkok. We agree that the best food is certainly found at the food stalls and not at restaurants. To this end, we make a game of looking for food stalls crowded by only silent, noodle- or soup-slurping Thais. We space each meal out over hours--sampling fried bananas before breakfast (which is usually chicken and rice soup) and washing our meals down with fresh mango and pineapple fruit shakes.

As a good excuse to get up close and personal with the Thai culinary delights we love so much, we decide to take two different cooking classes in Chiang Mai. On the morning of cooking school number two, we are collected from our hotel--along with 6 others--and the group heads to a local market. We are given a quick tour, but spend most of the time walking around with a funny Australian girl and taking pictures of dilapidated pig heads, fermented veggies, and colored (pink) eggs. The pink egg sighting prompts a brief conversation about what the Australian girl and I dub the “Thai novelty factor”--why not make eggs pink, right? Similar to blue or green carnations, we theorize that these pink eggs were created when the chicken was fed pink food coloring. The Australian girl is nursing a hang over and I admire her ability to navigate this stomach-churning market without making a break for the bathroom.

We are again collected--along with our cooking comrades--from the market and we head for the Thai Farm Cooking School. The school, as the name suggests, is located in the Thai countryside on a charming plot of vivid green land adorned with herb and fruit bushes. We are given all the necessities for a day as a Thai cook - mortar, pestle, cutting board, knife,…and a large straw hat. As we tour the farm, I can hear the Thai sous chefs chatting in the kitchen. “What do you think they are talking about?” I ask the Australian girl. Even in her hung over state, she quips, “I think they are saying, ‘looking at those stupid farangs wearing those hats.’” ‘Farangs’ is a Thai word that translates to something like “fruits,” but it’s often used as a derogatory term for foreigners--although I have never actually heard anyone say it (but I read about it).

Thai cooking lacks technique really. It’s just chopping and smashing and tossing it all into a wok. Instead, it’s all about the ingredients. Common to Thai cuisine is a relative of the ginger root called galangal. Other stars include kafir limes (both the fruit and its leaves), at least four different varieties of basil, red chilies, green chilies (but not the kind you find in New Mexico), miniature (bitter) eggplants, coconut milk, shrimp paste, soy sauce, and peppercorns. And fish sauce--always, always, fish sauce.

First we create our own curry paste--using a mortar and pestle. More than one person jokes--calling over the pounding and rattling--that ‘at least we are getting our exercise’ before we all settle into our stations inside of the barn/ kitchen area. The rest of the day passes without event. We each create different dishes and have the chance to watch the others. I make green curry and Pierce makes yellow curry. I make spicy papaya salad and Pierce makes chicken cashew nut stir fry. Fortunately, neither Pierce nor I opted to make spring rolls--which prove to be difficult. The poor, hung over Australian girl used almost all of her remaining cognitive resources to make a single spring roll--all the time cursing her work. We all tell her that the spring roll looks great and she brightly snaps pictures of it--ultimately proud of her handiwork. We all make more food than we can possibly eat and leave the farm with “to-go” bags of Thai food in hand. Overall, it’s a great way to spend a day.

When I ask for a microwave at our guesthouse to reheat my Pad Thai, the guesthouse owner says she is very impressed. “Oh! You make?! Wow.” I wanted to say that it was no big deal and that I hadn’t even braved the spring rolls, but--hey--it’s fun that she’s impressed (or at least pretending to be). As we munch on the fruits of our labor in the garden of the guesthouse in the setting Thai sun, I smile at my less-than perfect Pad Thai--thinking to myself ‘this really is the best Pad Thai I have ever had.’

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