Wats for Lunch

After spending a day lost amid the tumultuous frenzy of Chinatown, drinking in the vast array of sights, sounds and smells (not to mention some excellent food), we felt that a slightly more sedate approach might be appropriate for our second day. Yes, Bangkok is a manic city but it is possible, thanks to the influence of the predominant religion of Theravadin Buddhism, to escape the chaos and the noise in any one of a number of blissful oases. Temples, or Wat, rise up out of their surroundings and provide delightfully serene pockets where perfumed incense replaces the more familiar smells and a gentle calm pervades.



Buddhism is a visible and welcome influence in Thai life, one that segues its way, almost effortlessly, into virtually all other aspects of the culture. Where we may be used to taxi drivers hanging air fresheners and fluffy dice from rear view mirrors, here they prefer amulets in the hope that they will bring them safety on the chaotic roads (although I can’t help thinking that if a sizeable chunk of the windscreen wasn’t taken up by nine or ten swinging mascots, they would have less need for such trinkets). I am quite used to buses and trains having dedicated seats for the elderly or pregnant women but doubt whether transport for London would go so far as marking ‘space for monks’, as they do on the river buses. Nor do I envisage the buyers of Tesco deciding to stock monks’ robes or other such religious paraphernalia. And so, with Buddhism such an integral, unavoidable and interesting part of the culture, we felt it necessary to see some of the Wat.

We took an express boat up the Chao Praya (being careful to avoid the monk space), the central river that runs like an artery through Bangkok, and got off within walking distance of the Grand Palace, the former residence of the Thai royal family and now the city’s main tourist attraction. On our way we were accosted at least three times by helpful locals informing us that the temple was closed, despite the hoards of tourists flocking towards a very open looking entrance.

Here I shall digress momentarily to impart some advice to anyone who visits this great city. Unless you wish to spend a couple of hours being taken from gem shop to gem shop and tailor to tailor in a tuk tuk (imagine a golf buggy with three wheels, a frighteningly large engine and a death wish and you are somewhere close), ignore anyone who says that your destination of choice is closed, no matter how official they may look. This is a scam.

(Although I did admire the gall of one wizened looking gentleman who attempted to convince us that the temple was very much closed whilst stood squarely in front of a sign that said in at least four languages ‘The temple is open seven days a week. Ignore any person who tells you otherwise’ – or words to that effect. I toyed with the idea of suggesting he chose his pitch more carefully in the future but he had already moved onto another couple before I could say anything).



The palace itself is, quite simply, stunning. A seemingly disparate collection of buildings each gilded with thousands of tiles of gold or vivid primary colours. The walls are painted with detailed and gory frescos relaying some ancient Eastern legend. Between three of the buildings sits a scale miniature of the great Angkor Wat. Amidst the bright ostentation of the temples that surround it, it looks drab and helpless. I couldn’t help thinking that far from being a mark of respect or admiration, it is perhaps a sly and underhand dig at neighbouring Cambodia. Hopefully the photographs should do justice to this incredible place.



A short walk from the Grand Palace is Wat Pho, home to a 46 metre long reclining Buddha figure painted head to toe in gold leaf. I had read about this in the guidebook but had somehow mis-read 46 metres as 46 feet. As a result I was in something of a state of awe when I saw the sheer size of the construction.



For all the grandiose design and impressive architecture of the Grand Palace, if I had to choose between the two then Wat Pho would be my recommendation. Although still relatively popular and still quite sizeable, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha is more of a haven, a delightful pocket of tranquillity in possession of the largest, and most relaxed, looking Buddha I have ever seen.

Having spent the morning exploring Wats of one sort, we spent the afternoon delving into temples of another – Bangkok has a number of enormous shopping malls, each a stand-alone temple to consumerism, an air conditioned leviathan specifically designed to get you to part with your baht. A trio of these sit next to each other, each jostling for space around the perimeter of Siam Square.

Because of our increasingly empty bellies we chose MBK, a towering eight-floor mall, two of which are devoted entirely to food outlets. Here you can sample sushi, Indian food, Greek grilled meats, Middle Eastern kebabs and, of course, Thai cuisine. Of the two floors the lower one is a slightly more formal and expensive affair where food and drink is paid for on a swipe card and the balance settled on exit.

We picked two curries and watched them being made in the open kitchen, one of six each with a team of chefs sweating over woks, burners, ovens, rotisseries and pans. Our steaming food was presented to us and we were shown to a selection of condiments with which to flavour our lunch as we saw fit. Thai cuisine is about balancing acidity, saltiness, sweetness and heat and virtually everywhere you eat you see this philosophy borne out in the same way: four containers holding white vinegar (with chilli), fish sauce (with chilli) sugar (without chilli) and, yup, chilli.



I spooned some of each into a dedicated sauce tray and we took a seat close to the bar, for obvious reasons. Despite my affinity for street food and desire to embrace the culture of wherever I happen to be as wholeheartedly as possible, there was a real element of luxury in eating sat at a table in an air-conditioned shopping centre as opposed to huddled on a pavement with the heat and dirt from a thousand cars enveloping your being. And the food here was good. It was fresh, tasty, as spicy as you want it to be and wonderfully satisfying, especially when washed down with an icy cool Singha. Perfect fuel for exploring the shops, of which there were hundreds.



At the time I felt as if we had split the day firmly into two separate parts: culture and shopping, but hindsight would suggest otherwise. Seeing the malls of Siam Square was as much of a culturally relevant experience as seeing the gilded temples and jewelled Buddhas, perhaps even more so. There are purists who would suggest otherwise, that it is a shame Thailand has bowed so eagerly to consumerism and perhaps lost its core elements along the way but I disagree. It is just another wonderful manifestation of the multifaceted nature of this diverse country, two sides of the very same coin.

www.justcookit.co.uk

Aw shucks

I’m delighted to announce that I have been presented with my very first award. Dave Sacerdote, from the excellent blog Dave's Cupboard, deemed me worthy of the Arte e Pico award (details here) passed on from blogger to blogger and given to those who ‘display creativity, present interesting material and contribute to the blogging community in some way.’ As a result, I am honoured and get to pass on the award to five like-minded foodies. And so, in no particular order:

Matt from Wrightfood is clearly a talented chef and his photographs do justice to some wonderful creations. I am always delighted when I see he has updated his blog.

I discovered Kate’s blog, A Merrier World, when she invited me to write a post about free-range chicken. The post hasn’t (yet) been written but it did allow me to discover a great blog.

Taste Bud Travels is a great blog from Cheeky Spouse who documents her adventures on the ‘grow-your-own’ front, many of which strike an eerily familiar chord with me.

Darlene from Portland, Oregon is the author of Blazing Hot Wok– an awesome blog which I always delight in reading, thanks in part to her love of Thai food.

And finally Foodycat, is a London based Aussie who write about some of the finer things in life including, amongst other things, pork scratchings. Anyone who respects pork scratchings deserves an award (plus it's a really good read).

Oh, and the rules are:

1. Pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award with their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogger community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog.
3. Each award-winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award4. Award-winners and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5. Display these rules on your blog.

I'm also going to take this opportunity to mention again my new blog where you will be able to read musings of all descriptions. It is here

Bangkok

Food dominates life in Bangkok in a way I have not witnessed in any other city. The residents of this vast urban sprawl appear to be engaged in a near perpetual hunt for the next meal. A while back I was discussing the nature of being a ‘foodie’ with my girlfriend. The conclusion we reached was that a ‘foodie’ is one who is thinking about their next meal even before they have finished the one they are eating. If this is the case then Bangkok is a city of six million bona fide foodies.

Couple this desire for eating with an almost natural entrepreneurial bent and you have a city where it is possible to sample a new taste or textural sensation every five metres, or so, whatever the time of day.

Restaurants and cafés per se don’t really exist. This is a city that ebbs and flows like a vast ocean and the food carts and nomadic street vendors are the living embodiment of this philosophy. Even the markets, which appear stationary, evolve and shift, tide like. It is, in short, a paradise for any gastronome.


We headed straight for Chinatown. A heaving, sweaty, tightly packed part of the city next to the river. There is no centre, as such, to Bangkok and it is easy to get hopelessly and wonderfully lost in this alien world. So that is exactly what we did. The market here swallows you hungrily, quickly enveloping you in a seemingly endless collection of stalls. The streets are narrow and covered making it even more difficult to navigate your way through the labyrinthine warren.

Rain had leaked through the canopy during the night making the ground underfoot dirty and treacherously slippy, especially for any idiot wearing flip-flops with little grip. Unfortunately that idiot was me. Thankfully, the sheer busyness of the place made it impossible to fall over. I was also a good foot taller than the vast majority of people around me allowing me to be able to see when an impossibly laden cart was heading directly for us, seemingly bending the known laws of physics with its ability to slip lithely through the throng.


The market appeared to be loosely organised into sections although at each junction, and at many places throughout, the system deviated and a wandering hawker would be proffering some tasty treat or other: sliced fruit on ice pepped up with chilli and sugar, skewers of non-descript meats grilling over hot coals, chicken frying in vast woks of spitting oil, steaming bowls of noodles complete with various bits of duck or pig – the choice was so vast as to be almost paralysing, as long as one wasn’t too concerned about the apparent lack of health and safety and basic hygiene precautions.

I take a philosophical view when it comes to such matters. Here in the UK, as in much of the western world, we live in a disinfected cotton wool shroud that appears to be doing us more harm than good. The human body is much more resilient than we give it credit for and if being seared in boiling fat doesn’t kill whatever bugs might be residing in my plate of rice or noodles, then maybe it deserves to have its fun inside my gut.

Suffice to say I am not squeamish about street food. Far from it. I simply adore it and think it gives a better indication and insight into a nation’s culinary culture than any three star restaurant or sanitised hotel kitchen. The streets are where people eat. Together. There is something wonderfully democratic about individuals from all walks of life heading to the same cart to get their Khao Phad or noodles. Street food is the soul of a city and I have never, not once, fallen victim to any malevolent bug caught from a roadside eatery.

In Thailand, street food is an institution. It isn’t a whim dreamt up to please the hoards of tourists that descend upon the country, many of whom refuse to eat anywhere other than their hotels – it is a 500-year-old tradition that exists because the Thais love to eat and they love to share this base pleasure with as many people as possible, as often as possible. The notion of three square meals a day is as alien to the Thais as the idea of near constant grazing is to us. Well, most of us at least.


For our first taste of this gloriously simple food we went by smell alone. It was nearing lunchtime so the fried eggs that appear at carts all over the city first thing in the morning had made way for more savoury and filling wares. It was too early for Phad Thai - more of an evening dish cooked when the sun has set – and we didn’t quite feel confident enough to test the noodles yet. Amid the heaving market was a tiny woman knelt by a large flat pan in which she was frying cubes of what looked like green jelly. We had no idea what it was but the smell alone was enough to convince us to part with thirty baht and sample the strange foodstuff.

Ten of these cubes, each one a large mouthful, were piled into a small plastic tray and sprinkled liberally with dark soy sauce, flecked throughout with the deep red of dried chillies before a wooden skewer was thrust into the steaming pile and we were sent on our way.

I have no idea what we ate (the first of many times during our holiday) but it was delicious: a crispy outside and a savoury dark green jelly inside with an intense saltiness thanks to the soy sauce. But they were filling and we struggled to finish the tray. I closed the clear plastic bag around the remains and we carried on through the market, pondering what we just ate in a happy and content fashion.

That was until heavy traffic forced us to stop outside a stall. A young Thai man, presumably the proprietor of the shop, looked at the bag in my hand, pointed at it then glanced up at my face before breaking into uncontrollable laughter. Still, it tasted good.

www.justcookit.co.uk

New blog

Recently I’ve been writing an increasing number of non-food related pieces, some of which have found there way onto this very blog. Whilst these have been well-received, I’ve decided that they have no place under the Just Cook It umbrella and so I’ve decided to start posting them here, on a brand spanking shiny new blog: www.alexrushmer.blogspot.com

There is no theme, no unifying factor and no agenda. They are simply my non-food related thoughts. So, please feel free to pop over and say hello. It would be great to see you over there.

NB – Facebook users, these posts won’t show up on the site so you’ll have to go here directly. Assuming you want to read them, of course.

Thailand - A brief introduction

I really don’t know where to start. My usual existence plays itself out in a satisfyingly sedate fashion: the occasional domestic duty punctuating an otherwise relaxed approach dominated by growing food, cooking food and writing about (mostly) food. There might be the odd day when I go for a run, wander into town and buy a new album or amble around the flat countryside that surrounds our house. But most of the time I am beavering away, attempting to eke out a living by doing the things I love most, the things listed above.

Suffice to say that the last fortnight has provided something of a departure from this genteel life. The sweaty streets of Bangkok, so alive in so many ways, the soft beaches of Phuket and the sinister underbelly of Patong are a world away from the small, sleepy Cambridgeshire village I call home. And what a wondrous, living, breathing, pulsating, vibrant world Thailand is.

A slow and relaxed karmic paradise that lives in a manic frenzy. The sweeping hills flecked green with lush trees overlook heaving polluted city streets where the concept of a carbon footprint is unheard-of. The peaceful tranquillity of the Buddhist tradition exists amidst a tumultuous ferocity of a sprawling metropolis. The gentle curves of traditional Thai architecture sit alongside the harsh angular regularity of a modern city block. The intricate delicacy of old artwork appears soft against the brutal realism favoured by the nation’s contemporary artists.

Thailand encompasses all these things and more with an indescribable grace: everything and nothing that you expect. During the two short weeks that we spent there we saw many sides to this disparate yet cohesive nation; a country developing both within and outside of itself, finding its place in the world; struggling with and embracing the many facets of its intricate existence.

I have no doubt that we barely scratched the surface – the north of the country remains a mystery, as do many of the outlying islands, not to mention the complex traditions and formalities that pervade Thai life – but I like to think that we managed to at least begin the process of unraveling this incredible, fascinating and wonderful nation.

And the food? I suppose you’ll just have to wait and see.