‘Bangkok’ a snapshot of the city
Author dives deep into its food, culture ‘Train’ fried rice
“Bangkok” is Leela Punyaratabandhu’s detailed portrait of the bustling metropolis she grew up in. Though she moved to Chicago for college, the food of her youth always remained important. She started writing the wildly popular blog She Simmers ( shesim mers.com) about cooking Thai food and splits her time between Chicago and Bangkok.
As its name suggests, “Bangkok” (10 Speed Press, $35) doesn’t spend any time on other parts of Thailand. “It’s a snapshot of Bangkok,” says Punyaratabandhu. “There are dishes that are older than the city itself and dishes frommy family.”
She also mostly avoids the cliched images of street food hawkers and characters milling about Khaosan Road. She focuses on the everyday experiences, froma turbulent boat ride on the Chao Phraya River to the many family meals at her grandparents’ house that is “big enough for the entire clan, should anyone need a place to stay in times of need.”
“This is the book Iwanted to write beforemy first book,” she says. In the end, Punyaratabandhu and her publisher decided to release the relatively leaner “Simple Thai Food” first in 2014. “The goalwas to ease people into traditional Thai food,” she says. “The book ended up being just as authentic, but the mission of the bookwas to pare down the recipes to ones that were easier to make.”
“Bangkok” makes no such concessions. The hefty book includes recipes with ingredients you’d be hard-pressed to track down at your local grocery store, unless you regularly can find fermented red tofu, pandan leaves or winged beans. Fortunately, you can order most ingredients online, and Chicagoans can find everything at Golden Pacific Market (5353N. Broadway).
Even with the focus, Punyaratabandhuwasn’t able to include everything shewanted. “Paring down the list of foodswas painful,” she says. “I actually cried when making the final decision.”
What finally made the cut differs fromwhat most people might associate with Bangkok. There's no basic red curry or tom kha gai soup, but you will find recipes for 24-hour chicken matsaman curry and braised chicken in coconut-galangal cream sauce. Pad Thai pops up, albeit wrapped in an omelet and requiring 24 ingredients, including fresh shrimp tomalley. No matter what your level of comprehension of Thai cuisine is, you’ll inevitably learn something new.
It also turns out that Bangkok is much more diverse and varied than you might imagine. As Punyaratabandhu writes, Bangkok cuisine can be described as an “indigenous Central cuisine” of Thailand, with “Chinese, Mon (a state in Burma), Persian, Portuguese, modern European, North American, and more …”
That means some dishes look surprisingly inauthentic. “Every race and cuisine and ethnic culture that has come through Bangkok, we retain that and come up with something unique,” Punyaratabandhu says. “A lot of recipes you can’t find anywhere else, even in Thailand.” For example, a recipe for train fried rice includes ketchup, not exactly authentically Thai. As she explains in the book, in the early 20th century, “rail diningwas all about luxurious imported items thatweren’t available to everyday people.” At that time, “butter, sausage, peas, and European seasoning sauces” were as prized as “foie gras, burrata, or lobster is today.”
Punyaratabandhu hopes the book corrects misconceptions about the food in Bangkok, specifically the idea that people only eat street food. “When people think of Bangkok, they think of street food, but Bangkok is a lot more than that,” she says. “The best food is not found on the street at all. There is destination street food, but those are rare. We have more to offer. Look deeper into the parts of the city that (tourists) don’t normally get to see. Especially the food cooked in homes.” Prep: Makes: Cook: