The American writer P.J. O’Roarke insisted that the only sure-fire aphrodisiac was a Mercedes-Benz. Others say there are two, money and power.
I don’t even have a motorbike and of the other two, I have none, as well, so please pass the gecko wine.
Gourmet Dining on the Cheap
In the West, street food is severely limited in both variety and imagination. One encounters a soft pretzel served with mustard outside the home of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Roasted chestnuts near London’s Big Ben. Tortillas with a filling in Mexico City. A hot dog here, a submarine sandwich there. And most people think “fast food” means you know whose hamburgers, fried chicken and pizza. Or something nuked in a microwave.
Ah, but take your hunger to the streets of the “developing” nations of the world, and especially to Asia, and there you find a level of culinary sophistication unmatched elsewhere. There are no cloth napkins. There are no waiters to take you to the table. There may not even be a table or chairs and if there are, they may be so close to the ground they seem made for small children. But, the food, oh, the food… isn’t that what’s important, after all, and so often is lost in overpriced, climate-controlled “ambiance”?
On the street, at temporary stalls and rolling carts and from baskets hung from bamboo shoulder poles—here today, gone soon, back again same time tomorrow—is the world’s most succulent and tantalizing moveable feast, where diners encounter unparalleled richness and variety, along with a speed in delivery unrivaled by all the efficiency experts behind the international fast food chains. Street food is the original fast food. And not only is the choice greater, it is cheaper and tastier, and also, in most cases, likely healthier.
No one can say which “developing” nation’s street cuisine is best, but in any argument, Thailand gets unchallenged respect from everyone. It is for good reason that Thai food has been the most popular cuisine to sweep the world since, well, chop suey and the sushi bar. Visitors to Thailand seeking The Real Thing make a big mistake if they don’t eat some of their meals on the street.
Sitting on those tiny stools, knees cracking, struggling with chopsticks, puzzling over why Thais push their food onto a big metal spoon with the back of a fork, while trying to identify the sauces and condiments in the little carry-away rack where there ought to be—and aren’t—salt and pepper, ketchup and mustard, can be a daunting, or enlightening, experience. (For the record, the condiments usually are fermented fish sauce, crushed peanuts, dried chili peppers, and sugar, all of which may be added to soup.)
Why, the foreigner may ask, are cold drinks taken away in plastic bags tied off at the top with a rubber band, rather than in a cup? What are all those little pancakes filled with and why is that woman pounding shredded green papaya so mercilessly in a mortar? Are those bananas being boiled in oil? What are those hairy red things piled next to the mangos? Why is so much wrapped in banana leaves or packed into bamboo before it is cooked? Is that toilet tissue being used for paper napkins? Are those insects, heaped high on the tray?
Eating on the street in Thailand is an adventure—noisy, vigorous, and for anyone unfamiliar with the widely ranging Asian diet, sometimes startling. There is no air-conditioned hush that you’d find in most restaurants; a bus and a small pack of motorcycles go past instead. And the food doesn’t appear magically from some mysterious location; you watch it being prepared as the smoke and odors wash over you, and if you stand too close to the huge wok full of boiling oil or fat of dubious origin, it will probably stain your clothing. Eating on the street in Thailand is being a part of a show. Gastronomy as street theater.
This is the way food is consumed in Thailand by the local population. It is to the streets and the waterways (where floating kitchens dispense soup and other foods), carts, temporarily erected stalls, bicycles and vendors carrying baskets on their backs, that the rural villagers and urban poor go for a thrifty, nourishing nosh or snack.
Slices of green mango are dipped into a mixture of sugar, salt and crushed or powdered chilis. Iced whole coconuts are “topped” and served with a straw. Beef (okay, maybe water buffalo) and pork and chicken chunks laced onto skewers are grilled over charcoal. Massive ears of corn are grilled in the same fashion, as are eggs and chicken thighs and whole fish (also skewered) and a puzzling array of twisted innards.
Dried, roasted squid on a bicycle rack is run through a set of hand-cranked rollers and reheated over a brazier balanced behind the seat. Lengths of sugar cane are treated to a similar pair of rollers to extract the clear, sweet juice, which is then mixed with water and ice. Sticky rice is cooked with sweet beans in bamboo or banana leaf. A mixture of coconut milk and rice flour, slightly sweetened and slightly salted, is heated in concave indentations in a heavy iron pan over a portable gas burner. The juice of small oranges (never mind the greenish color; they’re incredibly sugary) are squeezed as you watch, then poured into plastic bags with crushed ice and tied at the top with a rubber band, the corner of the bag open for inserting a straw.
Crispy-fried grasshoppers, silkworms, crickets, beetles, caterpillars, miniature shrimp, tiny whole frogs and even scorpions are salted and spritzed with vinegar and carried away in small paper bags made from the morning newspaper. Better than popcorn, say Thai gourmands. And lower in cholesterol than many other protein sources, say nutritionists.
As for this being the original “fast food,” someday I’d like to see a race staged between a McDonald’s serf and a Thai street cook, see who can deliver my lunch first. I’ll put my money on the middle-aged woman on Sukhumvit, Soi 4, who produces a healthy bowl of noodles with chicken, bean sprouts, chopped morning glory leaves and stems, garlic and spring onions, a selection of condiments waiting on the table with chopsticks and metal spoons, in about ten seconds flat… and—get this!—nothing had been pre-cooked.
Street hawkers—most but not all are women—are numerous where foot traffic is heaviest—for example, outside rail and bus stations, and along sidewalks where there are clusters of office highrises or, after dark, near the numerous entertainment venues. The food varies from one region of the country to another, but if there is a dominant influence, it is that of Northeastern Thailand, called Isan. Not so many years ago, dishes from this part of the country—the largest, the most densely populated, the poorest—were scorned by outsiders as fit only for peasants. Since then, thousands of food vendors from Isan have set up shop not only in Bangkok but throughout the kingdom and many Isan dishes are now considered a part of the “national” cuisine.
In recent years, there have been arguments about how “clean” Thai street food is, or is not. Pesticides and bacteria have been found in many ingredients. (As they are, too, in five-star hotels; five out of the six times I’ve been made sick by what I’ve eaten in Thailand has been after dining at a “nice” restaurant or hotel, not on the street.) The water used by street cooks for washing bowls, plates, and tableware may be of questionable origin. Unlike in the West, few food preparers wear hairnets or hats, or change the oil used for frying as often as they might. The complaints go on and on.
It’s all a tempest in a bowl of noodle soup, if you ask me. In a time of mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth and SARS and high cholesterol Big Macs, I find it difficult to get frantic about what I eat on the street in Thailand. The risk is, for me, worth the gastronomical choice and reward.