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Iron Stomach & Jumpy Heart: A Family History

November 10th, 2008

Rice Flour Batter for Khanom Krok (Coconut Pudding)

Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Thailand – I got my iron stomach, my willingness to try new foods and my lack of concern for salmonella from my father. Dad always had a corny sense of mischief about food. There was that time he served purple potatoes for dinner, an oddity in the mid 1990s, without telling anyone and sat there chuckling to himself as we all cut in. Or that other time when he brushed aside our questions about the mystery meat until the end of the meal and then gleefully announced that we’d just consumed “bunny stew!” (I still think that night was a major contributor to my middle brother becoming a militant vegetarian.) Just this year I found out that when no one was looking dad used to mix medium salsa into the mild salsa to ratchet up our heat tolerance.

A self-taught homecook, when it comes to meals, dad always had a sense of adventure and a distaste for anything that smacks of snobbery. He’s always scoffed at dress codes and what he calls “designer water,” known as bottled water to the rest of us. So it’s no surprise that in the land where street food is king, he’s been at home. Our first meal together in Thailand was a deliciously intense khao soi at Khao Soi Lamduan in Chiang Mai and he crushed that bowl in about 3 minutes flat, enthusiastically squeezing more lime into the curried broth and slurping up egg noodles with vigor. Meanwhile my mother, from whom I may get my neurotic tendencies, was staring nervously at the glass of potentially unsafe ice and recounting all the things their travel clinic told them not to consume in Thailand. Dad rolled his eyes. Mom drank out of the bottle.

Dinner was more her style. We ate at the cozily sophisticated Huen Phen, a restaurant serving northern Thai on Ratchamakka Rd, digging into chicken wings fried with lemongrass, a sour northern curry with pork ribs and banana flowers, fried rice with northern sausage and a pomelo salad. A meal and a setting they could both agree on.

When we got to Bangkok, dad was turning his head to gawk at the stall tables filled with pots of curries, stir-fries and stews and diving into meals with unadulterated relish. It was almost more fun to watch him eat than to eat myself. At Sorndaeng, an upscale and slightly uptight Thai restaurant, he would scan the table – which held chewy broiled cockles, a spicy and sour banana flower salad, a sweet red duck curry, deep-fried chicken with herbs, soft eggplant with pork and basil, and stir-fried catfish with bitter roots – then bolt for one dish pouring or scraping a good portion of its contents on his plate before rapidly cleaning it.

There were also concessions to my mother. Afternoon tea at in The Oriental’s quietly gentile Authors’ Lounge was a must. Although the Oriental tea set of bite-sized sandwiches and pastries wasn’t the top of its class, the coconut ice cream starter was delightful and the setting beyond reproach. We also trekked out to the stylish Buri Tara (first introduced to me by the gracious Wendy Bank of NYC’s Land Thai via the wonderful Dorie Greenspan) set by the river on Rama III to lean back on modern black couches on a patio taking in the night breeze. Dinner was lit by tea lights floating in a curving vase. And both mom and dad enjoyed the ultra spicy tamarind soup with omelet, crab fried rice and a spicy shrimp salad.

Of course a few days in mother accidently drank water from the tap and after experiencing no devastating consequences, she relaxed a bit. We ate at scrubby noodle temple Raan Jay Fai, where the thin, stretchy wide noodles are worth their 250-baht price tag, as is watching Jay Fai dance with flames in tight, efficient movements turning to whisk up ingredients, pivoting back to her work and finally floating a heavenly plate of noodles out to our table. At Bangkok’s largest wholesale flower market, the Pak Khlong Talat, we scooped up scallion khanom krok (coconut pudding), fried chicken, grilled bananas and khanom jean num ya (fermented rice noodles with a spicy red curry with broken-down fresh water fish) out on the street. After a week of eating in sprawling street markets, posh hotels, trendy riverside restaurants, and junky noodle shops, Dad’s favorite was Raan Jay Fai’s noodles and mom’s was the street fried chicken at the Pak Khlong Talat. Mine was feeding the two people who patiently shoveled in my first bite.