Food, glorious food

I love to eat. Thankfully Thailand has no shortage of good food. I think the Thai people love to eat, too. The food journey here is an adventure all its own.

Last Friday, our friend Jit took me to the fresh market close to our house. You can buy food at the grocery store, but where's the fun in that? The fresh market is like a flea market for food. There are long aisles filled with any kind of food you can imagine; table after table. This vendor has grilled pork, that one has whole fish. This guy has bread and pastries, that lady has eggs. Everything comes in little plastic bags or wrapped in banana leaves. They have prepared foods, too, with homemade fans rigged up on top of empty coke bottles to keep away the flies. You can get curry or soup, noodles or sticky rice; a whole chicken if you want.

I had been itching to do some cooking at home, so on my first trip we loaded up on fresh veggies and fruits. Peppers, mushrooms, long beans, greens, mangosteen, lychee, mango...


Jit was very polite, but she laughed at how much food I bought. Most Thai people eat take-out. Why would you spend so much time cooking when you can get a meal already made for less than a dollar?

Don't worry, we're getting our share of yummy Thai take-out too. Last night was our first trip to the fresh market alone, without a Thai speaker to help us navigate. So many choices! And let's be honest, nothing really looks appealing squished into a plastic bag. It's sort of like getting a live fish at the fair. We closed our eyes and pointed and came out with a few things to try.

The noodles were great. Next time I think we'll skip the blood tofu soup.