The old and new from Bangkok Post's Thai food expert

Few people have the experience and expertise to write a Thai food column like veteran Bangkok Post writer Suthon Sukphisit. Here is an example.

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Long retired, veteran food writer Suthon Sukphisit still writes a regular column for the Bangkok Post. As you will see, it is just as interesting and informative as it ever was.

Mr Sukphisit's passion is authentic Thai food, the way it has been prepared for generations, preferably without modern "adjustments". Below is an excerpt from his latest column which appeared in Sunday's Brunch magazine. Few people have the knowledge and experience to write such a column. You can read the full, much longer, column here: http://www.bangkokpost.com/lifestyle/food-and-drinks/836692/the-old-and-the-new

The old and the new

Suthon Sukphisit

When you read old Thai cookbooks, you will find certain very specific descriptive words often appear with the instructions on how to prepare a dish. These can be very interesting, as they give an insight into how cooks of the past chose the ingredients and techniques that would ensure the dish would turn out at its best.

For example, when pounding the seasoning paste for a curry, the book might say “use Bang Chang dried chillies, onions, garlic, lemon grass, galangal, makrood lime zest and Khlong Khone kapi”. When adjusting the flavour the cook will be advised to use palm sugar and nam pla dee (good fish sauce). The specific call for Bang Chang dried chillies and Khong Khone kapi refers to the places of origin for the best quality products.

Suthon Sukphisit in 2005

“Good” nam pla refers to nam pla made the old-fashioned way. If sea fish is used to make it, it should be pla kratak (a type of sprat). Freshwater nam pla should be made from pla soy (a mud carp).

Good Thai cooks will always tell you that fine cooking depends on two things — the skill of the person who prepares it and the quality of the ingredients used to make it. Both of the examples cited above show that the cooks who used these books wanted ingredients they trusted and knew were of such high quality they were unwilling to settle for anything else.

Things change with time and some of the ingredients that cooks of an earlier era demanded no longer exist. New alternatives have appeared, some of which have replaced the old ones.

Dried chillies from Bang Chang used to be the first choice among cooks who made their own curries. They were big, dark red in colour, thick rather than thin and papery and just hot enough. Bang Chang was the original name of Amphoe Amphawa in Samut Songkhram, although that name has not been used in such a long time that many people have no idea where Bang Chang was located.

The reason the chillies grown there were so good was that saltwater from the sea entered some parts of the area to create a brackish water mixture. Fruit and other produce grown in places exposed to some saltwater often have good flavour and quality, so the chillies grown at Bang Chang were especially choice and found high favour among cooks.

Nowadays the phrik chee faa variety chillies dried for use in cooking have been bred to be longer and thicker and can be grown in Isan and other areas. They are now cultivated in great quantities and sold nationwide. The availability of the Bang Chang chillies diminished and became insufficient because the farmers there switched to other crops. Horticulturists traced the original strain and promoted the cultivation of the chillies by farmers in Ratchaburi's Damnoen Saduak district, Samut Songkhram province and in Nakhon Pathom, to be sent off for distribution to markets.

The situation can be somewhat confusing for buyers, though. Vendors will tell them that all the dried chillies come from Bang Chang because those are the ones that bring the higher price. All the chillies look the same, so there is no way of telling their actual place of origin. They can’t tell by the taste, either, because they don’t know what the flavour of chillies grown in brackish water areas is like and can’t make comparisons.

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