Bizarre Foods with Benja-mao

So I have found a new favorite food! 

Before I came to Thailand I was not a very adventurous eater. I loved to eat, don't get me wrong, and I could put some food down, but, what I chose to eat was nothing exotic by any means. An international meal for me was take out Chinese food and a cold Heineken. 

I guess for me when I ate out, which was not very often, I wanted to get something I knew I would like. So trying new types of cuisines was not a top priority for me. This past year was the first time I had sushi or Thai food. Yes, I had only eaten Thai food twice before I came here. But for some reason, when I got to Thailand, I became a very adventurous eater. I guess it could have been all those episodes of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman that I watched, and I must say he would be quite proud of me.

95% of what I have tried I have loved. I have been served some scary looking foods with new smells, textures, and tastes. I have eaten so many different animal parts that sometimes I would be to scared to ask about what I had just eaten so I can’t name them all. Can you?

These are pictures of a freshly slaughtered water buffalo. I was escorted here by the landskeeper at my school who is also a rice farmer. His name is Pi Khiow or Mr Green. He doesn't speak any English but that doesn't stop him from talking  to me as quickly as he can and therefore I can't understand anything he says either and so we both just laugh at each other not knowing anything the other is saying. Anyways Pi Khiow drove me out to the middle of a

rice field to this scene where a water buffalo was freshly slaughtered. There was a group of farmers squatting around their dinner table/ big banana leaf, eating the prime cuts from the buffalo and drinking some laos khao or white whiskey. Some pieces were raw and some cooked.  I ate few cooked pieces, one of which was what i think was utter, and a had a few bites of raw beef from a beautiful cut of meat dipped in a spicy sauce. The utter was a bit chewy but the raw beef was fantastic.

And of coarse, what would an episode of Bizarre Foods be with out bugs. I have not adventured too far into this food group but so far on my list I have crickets, ant eggs, beetles, silk worms, and mang mao (and yes if you remember the mao part means drunk and supposedly, if you eat enough, you will get drunk haha). The beetles were the only ones that I didn’t care much for.

I have also become a huge fan of spicy food. Again something I never ate back home but now I am addicted to it. Here in Thailand, it is an everyday occurrence and I have built up my tolerance so I can almost keep up with the Thais.

Simply put, Thai food is AMAZING. It is so quick and easy, fresh, healthy, and unbelievably delicious. OH THAI FOOD, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL OF MY LIFE!!! 

So now it saddens me to think that took 23 years to find my new favorite food, "my precious", khao niao or as us falongs would say 'sticky rice.'  

Sticky rice is mainly an Isan thing here in Thailand. It is a daily occurrence to see a family sitting under there house, on a mat, on the ground eating a meal with sticky rice. You can find sticky rice in other parts of Thailand but it will most likely be sold on a food cart by a person from Isan. Sticky rice is considered to be a blue colar food and so whenever we order it at a restaurant we always get a chuckle and they ask us if we know how to eat it. After 8 months, we are pro's and always amaze the locals when we show that we know how to eat sticky rice. It's really simple all you have to do is pick up a clump, roll it into a ball with one hand and then pinch the food between your fingers and the ball of sticky rice.

As with all rice, you don't eat sticky rice by itself, even though I would be glad to. Three dishes that top my list for favorite foods with "my precious" sticky rice are... som dtam, laab, and gai yang. Som dtam (to the right) is a light refreshing meal similar to how westerners eat salads. It is made with shredded unripe papaya, peppers (spicy), fish sauce (salty), garlic, lime (sour), and palm sugar (sweet), and a few other options such as long beans, tomatoes, peanuts, and fermented fish sauce. 

 Laab (to the left) is a spicy minced meat salad and gai yang (below) is simply grilled chicken.

I have become a raving fiend for sticky rice. I don't get it as often as some of the other volunteers but it just makes it that much better when I do get it. My host family is starting to catch on to my addiction and so I am getting it more than I used to. While “my precious” sticky rice fills my belly when ever I can find it, it has also opened my mind to what an amazing food culture I have stumbled into. And more importantly, it has sparked a desire to see what other great food cultures there are in this world and what they might have that will blow my mind just as the Thai food culture has. I think this is going to be the beginning of a long journey.