Thank you for subscribing!
Got it! Thank you!

Pass the Lemongrass: Learn to Cook in Thailand

To see Caroline's images of Chiang Mai, click over to our photo archive at Snapfish.com. A brief, but free, registration is required.

March, 2004 -- The first thing I dreamed about after booking my trip to Thailand was not a gorgeous cliff-ensconced private lagoon a la Leonardo di Caprio's eden-turned-nightmare in the film The Beach, nor gold and shiny, massive Buddhist temples. No, my dreams focused on creamy red curry and Tom Yum soup steaming with fresh lemongrass. So it came as no surprise that upon my arrival in Chiang Mai -- Thailand's second largest city and the center of Northern Thailand -- the first order of my day was to enroll in a Thai cooking class.

Chiang Mai is filled with many cooking schools, but the one listed in Frommer's Thailand stood out: Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. Established in 1993, the school is run by husband-and-wife team Sompon and Elizabeth Nabnian. Courses are offered in two locations: The Wok, their in-town restaurant, or at their home on the edge of town. Five different 1-day courses run 7 days a week, 10am-4pm, from 900 Baht ($23) for 1 day to 4,200 Baht ($107) for 5 days, including a complimentary cookbook with all the recipes the school covers in each course. Their central office located at 1-3 Moon Muang Road, opposite Thae Phae Gate, (tel. 053/2063888, www.thaicookeryschool.com, is full of information including course descriptions, online booking services, and more.

I simply dropped by their office and grabbed a colorful brochure describing the five varied 1-day courses. To my delight, one included a shopping trip for the day's supplies at the local food market. I immediately jumped at the chance to peruse the vibrant but oh-so-foreign-to-Western-eyes produce with a Thai food guide. I'd already discovered that even the few familiar items at a Thai market could still surprise my taste buds -- just the day before, a bag of what appeared to be fresh mango was really pickled mango! Still, I was fascinated and wondered -- What is all this stuff? And how does it turn into my beloved Thai meals?

The morning of my class, I wandered over to the office where I met 25 fellow students. Our instructor introduced herself, and announced that before we headed to the cooking school, we'd hit the market and shop for our day's supplies. "But," said our instructor with a smirk, "you will each be doing a little shopping yourselves." She then proceeded to pass out small slips of paper to each of us. The slips contained the name -- written in both Thai and English -- of one item to "buy," and off we headed to the market. I was in charge of a quarter pound of birds-eye chilies. Several chili food stalls and smiling vendors later, I found the diminutive red and green devils. I immediately recognized them as those tiny little ones that have made my eyes water on several occasions! The vendor handed me a bag-full, I handed over my slip of paper (the school knows everyone at the market and pays the vendors at the end with cash) and returned to the group, feeling quite satisfied with myself and determined to try them again despite my previous tongue-on-fire incidents.

After half an hour of shopping and many bewildered What is this!? and How do you eat that?, we all piled back in three private songtaos (pickup-up trucks with covers and seats in the back -- one of Chiang Mai's primary mode of transport) and headed out of town to the owner's home and cooking school. Bumping along for 20 minutes, my fellow students and I introduced ourselves and chatted in the easy "travelspeak" that naturally emerges among strangers exploring foreign lands: "Where are you from? Is that a Dutch accent? Where are you going? Oh, you'll love it -- I was just there...found this great restaurant right on the beach...!"

The school facilities located directly next door to the house are a Thai-style, mostly outdoor affair covered with a roof. The space was filled with individual cooking stations, each with its own wok and cooking utensils, a few long dining tables off to one side, and an enclosed room in the center. Lush, vibrant vegetation abounded in the garden surrounding it all, lending a tropical, tranquil feel to the setting. Several more teachers greeted us, and we headed into the indoor, air-conditioned demonstration room, where one of our teachers enthusiastically whipped up our first dish while describing how curry paste is made, suggesting at-home substitutions for Thai staples, and explaining variations in Northern vs. Southern Thai cuisine -- apparently the south often uses more coconut milk.

Stomachs growling, we headed to our stations to find our pre-measured ingredients all set up. We chopped, we filled our woks, we stirred, we stole glances at our neighbor's technique, and we laughed. Instructors milled about, dispensing advice and answering questions, and 10 minutes later we proudly munched our first course. The day flew by as we moved back and forth between the demonstration room and our woks, stopped for a long lunch, and ended with dessert. The owner of the cooking school taught one of the courses, and one instructor with a talent for origami even made a little green fish out of a banana leaf -- a reminder that Thai cuisine is an expression of their aesthetic sensibilities and no detail is left to chance. By mid-afternoon we managed to cook six courses in all -- from Spicy Prawn Salad to Yellow Curry with Chicken to Bananas in Coconut Milk. Stuffed from sampling our culinary effords, we relaxed and received our last treat -- a sampling of Thai fruits. Eyes wide with curiosity we watched as our instructors introduced a parade of fleshy yellow jackfruit, orange papaya, lychee-esque langsart, and crisp guava. We munched and even dipped the guava in a mixture of sugar and chili -- a popular condiment for guava in Thailand.

Sated, happy and chatty, we piled back into the songtaos and rode back to town. My new Canadian friend talked excitedly of his hometown's Asian grocery and the shopping trip he planned to make upon his return. The Dutch and Australians planned to swing by the market and pick up some jackfruit for breakfast. Invigorated with our new knowledge and armed each with a cookbook, the foreign ingredients no longer felt so daunting to us. I pictured myself in my kitchen slicing ginza, and stir-frying rice noodles in kafir lime leaves and tamarind juice, wowing dinner party guests and filling the air with the sweet aroma of coconut and cilantro. Yes, the cooking class was the perfect way to take a bit of my travels back with me, straight to my dinner table and into the hearts of my friends. I couldn't think of a better way to bring the essence of Thailand home.

Do you have a question or comment on this article? Talk about it on our Thailand Message Boards.


advertisement