WHERE HAS OUR FOOD GONE?
A DRASTIC CHANGE IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION HAS COST THE CENTRAL REGION INTEGRAL ELEMENTS OF ITS CUISINE
Styles of plantation used to reflect the local wisdom
Many aspects of the Central Region’s cuisine have been lost over the years. Reasons include the death of older generations, a lack of “cultural handover” between old and young, and, for some dishes, complicated cooking methods that require a lot of effort put into grilling or stewing and for which many people nowadays simply lack time or motivation.
Furthermore, Thailand’s Central Region, and especially Bangkok, is a hub for people coming from all over the country, who may or may not like the local food.
Food businesses, like all private enterprise, are compelled to look to the future in order to stay competitive, and that pressure comes with a need to create something new and unique. But for some, if not many, an original concept of food has been missing. The fact that raw materials for food, especially domesticated plants, are hardly seen at the moment, does not help with that.
In the past, the Central Region was regarded as a fertile source of food due to a large number of orchards spread across the area. It was also a source of fresh ingredients for many dishes. Garden groves were among the favourite styles for orchard farmers, where water from canals or rivers can irrigate the orchard. During rainy season, the plain area was heavily flooded, adding natural fertiliser to the soil. During dry season, there was still enough water left to support the plants.
One style of plantation also reflected local wisdom. Plants were grown in three tiers: tall trees such as coconut trees, santol, bamboo and neem were planted to give shadow and slow down strong winds, followed by lower trees such as marian plum, banana, sapodilla, coral tree, Indian mulberry, garcinia and som sa (bitter orange), mandarin orange and bread fruit. And the lowest were kitchen plants such as eggplant, pineapple and cassava root. They planted them for subsistence, before selling the rest on markets.
But right now, single-crop plantation has gotten the better of traditional plantation approaches, because the purpose has changed. Only a few kitchen vegetables can still be seen in some areas.
Now, let’s see what kind of foods the losing of traditional garden grooves has cost us. First on that list of bygone specialities is
som tam served with rice cooked with coconut milk and fried sweet shredded beef.
Som tam is not a dish limited only to the northeastern part of the country. For the Central Region, yellow to red papaya is mixed with chilli, coconut sugar, fish sauce, lemon, dried shrimp and beans.
It is served with rice cooked with salt and coconut milk, together with fried sweet shredded beef, coral leaves, planam and Thai sausage. ( Planam is a Thai appetiser made from the meat of grilled snake-headed fish pounded with galangal, coconut, sour garlic, red onion, lemon, sugar, salt and the sliced skin of som sa. Thai sausage is made of chopped pork, coconut milk, egg, sugar, salt and also the sliced skin of som sa. They all are served with cor-
al leaves). Miang kham (a betel leaf wrap snack) is also a traditional Thai appetiser served with the leaves.
Unfortunately, the coral tree has more or less vanished from the orchard despite its great benefits. Leaves falling from the tree used to make for nutrient-rich fertiliser.
Som sa fruit has an outstanding, aromatic scent. People in the old days frequently used its fragrant skin for cooking, especially in the making of crispy noodle or mee krob. Crispy noodle is still seen today, but without som sa skin.
Purple eggplant is another lost ingredient. These days, it’s not easy to find dishes that still use it, like purple eggplant curry with grilled fish or fried purple eggplant with basil leaves.
Garcinia was once widely found in the region and regarded as an important ingredient for food, giving a sour taste to Thai mackerel steamed in coconut milk with lotus stem, mackerel in spicy soup, or salted crab salad with chilli paste. Now, garcinia is barely planted anymore.
There are many foods made from hog plum, which is a seasonal plant, such as hog plum salad with crispy fish or pla sa
lid (a kind of freshwater fish) salad with hog plum. Our famous dish pad Thai was once served with slices of star fruit to give it a sour taste. Now, these star fruit slices have been replaced with lemon.
These are but some examples of central-style Thai food that has vanished from our cuisine, and perhaps already our collective memory. All due to the demise of traditional garden groves.