One of the greatest things about traveling to a foreign country is being able to experience both the culture and the food. While some of the food being sold in the markets and by the vendors was very foreign to us and we were not brave enough to sample it (e.g. gelled blood?) we enjoyed many of the Thai dishes. A popular tourist activity in Thailand, and very reasonably priced in Chiang Mai, is to take a cooking class. At 900 baht each ($30) for the full day, we had a full day of cooking, including a visit to the local market where our teacher, Lee Yu, taught us about the various vegetables, rice, noodles and spices used in Thai cooking. Lee Yu had a wonderful sense of humour and we enjoyed the company of 4 ladies from Australia.
We each had the opportunity to make 6 different dishes (plus a curry from scratch) so between us we sampled many of the dishes. We made:
Appetizer: spring rolls and papaya salad
Noodle: pad thai and pad see uw
Soup: tom yum and coconut milk soup
Stir fry: cashew nut with chicken, sweet and sour and stir-fried hot basil
Curry: red curry, panang and massaman
Dessert: sticky rice with mango and deep fried banana
And best of all, we got to eat it all. We look forward to trying out some of the recipes when we're home. On the down-side, we won't have someone doing all the prep and clean up for us when we do this at home :)
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