Home » Thailand Cambodia » Thailand and Cambodia, part 2

Reports of 2002 Backpacking in Thailand and Cambodia

Thailand and Cambodia, part 2

Agelasto
2004-05-18 21:10:12

Displayed times (last time: )

With time on my hands - we'll spend 50 days in Thailand - I've decided to take a course on cooking Thai food. My "Rough Guide to Thailand" - which I deem the best written, most comprehensive and instructional of the self-guides to this most hospitable, if tourist-infested country (it's refreshing to visit somewhere in this post 9-11 world where Americans are somewhat loved) unreservedly recommends The Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School (http://www.thaicookeryschool.com). Founded in 1993 - eons ago, given the pace of Thai tourism - it is the original and remains the most professional of 20 cooking schools in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand's vacationer's mecca.

I've chosen to take the complete course (under US $100) which runs for 5 consecutive days, 6 hours each session. Each of 18 pupils has his/her (class roughly 50-50) work station, and every time an implement or utensil is used, the staff of 10 whisk it away and replace it with what's needed for the next preparation. The chef demonstrates how to prepare a dish, we taste the result, then try to replicate.

Not surprisingly the class is mostly culinary refugees, natives of English speaking and northern European countries - all who have been brutalized by uninspiring and uninspired home food (I dare not use the word 'cuisine.') In class we eat what we cook and by the close of a session, we've polished off 6 dishes - equivalent to about 2 lunches. By course end I've prepared 30 different dishes which, since tofu, pork, chicken, lamb, beef and seafood are often substitutable, means I should be able to reproduce a Thai menu of 300+ dishes. Theoretically speaking, of course.

I came into the course with a favorable impression of Thai cuisine, and I come away in addition with slightly raw fingers, due to chopping so many chillies [The little green ('rat turd' in Thai) chillies are the most potent - the ...