How the tamarind tree saved Little Anna's life

When I moved to the United States I was surprised to discover that no one I met had ever heard of the tamarind tree, or tamarind fruit. I was shocked because tamarind trees are everywhere in Thailand, and play an important role in our culture and cuisine. In fact, it was a tamarind tree that saved little Anna's life.

Phetchabun province is located in the very middle of Thailand. Its official provincial tree is the tamarind but I'm surprised tamarinds are not the official tree of all Thailand. My family home in Chanthaburi has a tamarind tree in the front yard, as do many Thai homes. As you can see from the picture above, fully grown tamarind trees put the mighty English oak to shame.

OK, OK, you are thinking, get to the part about how the tree saved little Anna's life! I remember everything very clearly. It was the dry season and six-year-old Anna was running around in her yard playing when she saw a dog approaching her. The dog didn't look right. It was walking stiff legged and it seemed to be very angry. Little Anna was scared and began running. The dog ran after her, stiff legs sticking out all over the place.

I still remember how scared I was, and how relieved I was to reach the tamarind tree in a neighbor's yard. I climbed up it as fast as I could. Catching my breath I watched as the dog circled the tree. After a while my neighbors saw the dog and chased it away. My mom told me the dog was rabid and that I was lucky I didn't get bitten.

For that reason alone I really like tamarind trees. But even if a tamarind tree had not saved little Anna's life, I would still like them because they are an important part of my favorite Thai foods. Pad Thai would not be Pad Thai (#53) without tamarind. Likewise our Chili-Tamarind Stir Fry (#45) or Chili-Tamarind Fried Rice (#59).

I have told you many times that Thai food tries to be sweet and spicy and sour and salty all at the same time. Tamarind provides much of the sour. There is, however, another kind of tamarind that is sweet, and it is used in candy.
This has been your Thai food lesson for today.

The case of the missing fish sauce

No, this is not a story about fish sauce disappearing from True Thai's storerooms. This is a story about how it came to pass that Europeans stopped eating fish sauce, which is why you can only get fish sauce from Asia now.

If you go to Wikipedia, they tell you this about fish sauce:

Fish sauce is a condiment that is derived from fish that have been allowed to ferment. It is an essential ingredient in many curries and sauces. Fish sauce is a staple ingredient in Vietnamese, Thai, Lao, Cambodian, and Filipino cuisine and is used in other Southeast Asian countries.

But if you scroll down, you will find the story of European style fish sauce.

A similar fish sauce was ubiquitous in Classical Roman cooking, where in Latin it is known as garum or liquamen.... It was made of a variety of fish including tuna, mackerel, moray eel, and anchovies. This attitude derives in part from ancient authors who satirized the condiment, but mostly from the fact that fish sauce was generally unknown in the Western world until very recently. The truth is quite different, and in fact garum only smelled when it was being made. Once the process was complete it had a pleasant aroma for as long as it was usable.

In English it was formerly translated as fishpickle. The original Worcestershire sauce is a related product because it is fermented and contains anchovies.

I bet you did not know that Worcestershire sauce was a variation of fish sauce!

The ancient authors were not kidding when they said fish sauce smells bad when you make it. The area between my part of Chanthaburi and Bangkok has many businesses that make fish sauce. If you have air conditioning in your car, you roll your windows up when you drive by a fish sauce processor. Once the fish sauce is ready to eat, it loses that smell.

It's too bad Europeans gave up on such a healthy condiment just because it smells bad when you make it. That's better, I think, than if it smelled bad when you eat it. At True Thai, we like Squid brand fish sauce.

But there is another point to this story. I am reminding you of how much Asians love fish sauce because I want True Thai's vegetarian customers to remember to tell us that they are vegetarians. If you do, we'll be sure to help you with your order. Many appetizers come with fish sauce or a fish sauce based dipping sauce, but we can substitute that if you like.

A secret most Americans don't know

I cannot believe this. I've had three customers come in over the past two weeks to tell me about this "incredible" YouTube video that taught them the proper way to peel a banana.

Believe me, I already know how to peel a banana. In fact, in Thailand, before I moved to this country, I attended an orientation class and one of the things they warned us about was that "Americans do not know how to peel bananas." I was told it was impolite to correct Americans and so I have never told anyone here the right way to peel a banana. Except once, and that was a mistake.

I taught a friend and his family how to peel a banana, but when I told them the rest of the orientation story they got mad. The orientation teacher told us, yeah, in Thailand even monkeys know how to peel a banana but the Americans can't figure it out!

I think they forgave me but I didn't see them eat many bananas after that. If you would like to peel bananas the Thai way (the correct way — the way monkeys do it), watch this video.

You can thank me the next time you eat at True Thai. (The picture, by the way, shows a banana that's been peeled from the wrong end.)

Pineapple boats on parade

King Narai the Great's Royal Golden Pineapple Fried Rice (#62)

I have never seen anything like it. A group of 14 came in recently and each of them ordered the same thing, King Narai the Great's Royal Golden Pineapple Fried Rice (#62). I have never seen fourteen women so sure of anything as they were of their order. Fortunately they called in advance to let us know what they were ordering which was a very smart thing to do as we rarely have that many pineapples on hand at one time.

It was quite a sight when the wait staff walked out of the kitchen with pineapple boat after pineapple boat after pineapple boat. The staff is still talking about it. Honestly, we have have no idea what all that was about but the women left happy and left good tips so we were happy.

Pineapple boats have a very long and proud tradition in Thailand. Not just to serve fried rice in — there are also boats in the floating marketplaces filled only with pineapples.

But you can find fried rice pineapple boats everywhere, even at Ralph's Farm Market in Murrayville, Canada!

There's no reason why good food can't be fun to eat. Whether you eat by yourself or in a group, I defy anyone to eat fried rice from a pineapple boat without smiling!

Anna Anna Wake Up Anna!

Anna and some of her prikki-nu Thai chili peppers

Anna's garden is almost ready to harvest. All spring and summer the chili peppers, basil, and tomatoes have been growing. Already some of my employees are harvesting peppers to put on their lunches, but that just means the surviving peppers will get even hotter as they turn red.

If you love hot food ask for me and I will run back to the garden to get some fresh hot peppers for your meal. True Thai hot is very hot, but True Thai hot with True Thai peppers is even hotter! We are already using these peppers in Anna's hot sauce (the kind I made for the Bishop). Anna's hot sauce isn't on the tables in the condiment trays. Our policy is that the customer has to ask for it because it's too hot and we don't want anyone accidentally "ruining" their meal by making it too hot.

Some people think hot peppers are from the devil, but as a nurse I know that hot peppers are very, very good for you. The active ingredient is capsaicin which is a safe analgesic treatment for arthritis pain, painful herpes sores, diabetes, post-masectomy pain, and headaches. I even have a friend who mixes cayenne powder with vinegar to help manage her psoriasis.

Mynah birds love hot peppers. When little Anna was five years old my mom gave me a mynah bird as an alarm clock. Every morning at 5:30 a.m. Koon Tong ("Golden Warrior") would wake me up by saying Anna Anna Wake Up Anna over and over again until little Anna got out of bed. It was then my job to pick 30 prikki-nu peppers for Koon Tong, the redder the better.

Because Koon Tong ate prikki-nu hot chili peppers, little Anna learned to eat hot chili peppers. Little Anna was bigger than Koon Tong, and little Anna decided that whatever Koon Tong ate, little Anna could eat too.

Koon Tong died when I was ten. We had a ceremony and then we buried him in my front yard.

The national dish of Thailand

Either Frugal Danny or Frugal Roxanne just posted in their Frugal Danny and Roxanne's Good & Plenty Cheap Eats Restaurant Guide about True Thai's Ultimate Pad Thai (#53).

Friendly helpful and reasonable for some really tasty good Thai food - Wins awards for best thai restaurant. i think the owner was an english major - the menu has some of the best short punchy creative writing i've read this year.

They were very nice but I feel I must correct the record. No, I am not an English major! English is my second language. But I will admit that when I was putting together True Thai's menu, I did spend a lot of time consulting a thesaurus. Here is how our takeout menu describes our Ultimate Pad Thai:

Try this legendary and gloriously addictive noodle dish, and learn why it is Thailand's gift to the world.

Pad Thai on the patio

Wikipedia has a helpful description of Pad Thai:

Pad Thai (or Phad Thai, ผัดไทย, Thai style frying") is a dish of stir-fried rice noodles with eggs, fish sauce (น้ำปลา), tamarind juice, red chili pepper, plus any combination of bean sprouts, shrimp, chicken, or tofu, garnished with crushed peanuts and coriander. It is normally served with a piece of lime, the juice of which can be added along with Thai condiments. Pad Thai is one of Thailand's national dishes.

Well, since Wikipedia just told you one of our secret ingredients (tamarind sauce), I might as well let you know the other ingredient that will make your Pad Thai taste like it came from Thailand: pickled radish. Also known as pickled turnip, pickled radish is very important to good Pad Thai. When you eat Pad Thai and you bite into a tiny piece of something chewier than rice noodles but tangy? That is pickled radish.

Tamarind sauce and pickled radish make Pad Thai uniquely Thai. When you go to a mediocre Thai restaurant and you find yourself thinking, hmmm, this does not taste as good as Anna's Pad Thai, that's because cheaper restaurants often cut corners and leave out the most flavorful ingredients.

Pad Thai is the national dish of Thailand, and many people eat it for lunch every day. I know we have customers who never order anything else and there are many Thai who would agree with them.

A nine-fingered post

the color purple!

Ow ow ow! I smashed my finger in the car door and now it hurts to type. But still I have to do this post because I just had to thank the Geek Girls for the nice things they blogged about True Thai Restaurant and Anna's True Thai News.

Over 300 of you are following me on Twitter now. I'm still not sure how the restaurant gets more business when we are followed by people from all over the world, but I am still new to this "social networking" thing.

Mostly I'm happy that you all are happy. The new patio seating makes people happy, not having to wait in line to be seated makes people happy, and our food, beer and wine still make people happy.

Even though I smashed my finger I too am happy. Why? Because yesterday Mr. W., one of our regular customers, came in for his weekly takeout order of King Narai the Great's Royal Golden Pineapple Fried Rice with Mock Duck (#62). He saw my finger when he paid for his order. The next thing I knew Mr. W. had come back in with an ice pack for my finger. All the wait staff saw this and were very impressed by Mr. W's kindness. Mr. W. helped make my finger hurt less, and that made me very happy.

Maybe we should have called it Happy Thai Restaurant!

Why I love America

Here are the top 10 reasons why I love America.

10. In Thailand we have no snow or ice. In America I have an 80-year-old neighbor named Larry who gets up early when it snows so he can shovel my walk. Larry has never charged me for this. Larry even shovels my walk before he does his. Larry says I work too much and he doesn't want me to slip and break my leg. Larry is a big part of why I love America.

9. In Thailand my friends kept telling me I was gaining weight. Larry's wife keeps telling me I need to gain weight. I like Larry and his wife a lot.

8. America has better Italian restaurants than Thailand.

7. In Thailand I was told I needed to learn to cook to get a husband. In America I got to earn degrees in Business Administration and Nursing. And I still get to cook!

6. In America I can dress up like Uncle Sam for the 4th of July. In Thailand they arrest you if you dress up like the King.

5. In Thailand there are countless great Thai restaurants. In America, not so many and that's good for my business.

4. The United States is not next to Burma. You don't know how lucky you are!

3. There is no Mall of Thailand.

2. In America, I learned how to blog. None of my friends in Thailand had heard of blogs before I started Anna's True Thai News!

And the #1 reason why Anna loves America? Because in Thailand I would not get to celebrate the 4th of July!

L.A. vegan restaurants fail ingredients test

Easily one of the biggest problems with trying to run a vegetarian-friendly restaurant is knowing what's in your ingredients. Mr. Meaner at Los Angeles food blog quarrygirl had the food from 17 L.A. vegan restaurants tested and seven of them failed due to the presence of casein and other prohibited substances.

No one takes their food more seriously than vegans and few "foodies" are more unforgiving in their criticism of restaurants. For most diners a bad meal is not the end of the world. For vegans, even a good meal can trigger unpleasant comments if they believe they were fed ingredients they find unacceptable. What should a restaurant owner do?

If you say you are a vegan restaurant, you are committing yourself to very strict standards. Keeping kosher is easy by comparison. Let me be very clear about this: True Thai is neither vegan or kosher! We have only one set of plates, and we use commercial ingredients over which we have no control but which we trust to be wholesome. We keep our prices low by keeping things simple, and running a vegan kitchen in a restaurant that serves meat, fish and eggs is next to impossible.

But I have been thinking about this challenge for a long time now. I would love to partner with some serious vegetarians to review True Thai's ingredients so we can offer a vegetarian menu that offers honest options to people who care deeply about their diet. In doing so I would hope to educate vegetarians about the realities of restaurant kitchens even as they educate me on the ways meat, fish and eggs sneak into other foods.

Many people think that Buddhists are all vegetarians, and that Buddhist countries like Thailand are havens for non-meat eaters. That is not true. Lord Buddha never commanded his followers to be vegetarians, and many forms of Buddhism allow monks to eat meat and/or fish. Even the Dalai Lama eats meat on occasion, although he teaches that vegetarianism is to be aspired to.

Americans, however, are nothing if not passionate. I know many Thai vegetarians and for them avoiding meat is either a duty or a goal, but either way the important thing is the effort.

True Thai has received complaints about our food from vegetarians. In some cases the criticism was warranted. Our biggest problem is in communication. We try but fail to make sure all our servers understand the issues involved, but for many of them there is simply too much involved in keeping track of all the different rules for all the different kinds of vegetarians. A special menu would help and I invite serious vegetarians with knowledge of food ingredients to email me to see if we can work together to solve the challenge of making True Thai more vegetarian friendly.

If you visit True Thai at night or on the weekends, and if you're not sure about what's in one of our dishes, please ask for me and I'll be glad to help you as best I can.

My friend Brenda Langton takes vegetarianism very seriously and loves True Thai as much as I love her restaurant, Café Brenda.

C.S.I. True Thai!

My favorite customer has made a YouTube video I want you all to watch.

I love this video! I got to meet "Myron" for the first time last night and he is quite the charmer. After watching this exciting video I think his friend "Olga" is also very very cute.

I don't watch much TV but I have seen some of the C.S.I shows and I like "Myron's" the best of all.

The Bishop and I

More about Anna and my family today. If you've visited my Flickr page, you may have seen my baby picture. In it I am wearing a dress made by my sister Wipa. At that time she had been a Catholic novice for six years, and six years after that picture was taken she became Sister Emile.

It was because of my sister's involvement in the Catholic church that I ended up living in Bishop Lawrence Thienchai Samanchit's household my last two years of high school. Bishop Samanchit was the second Bishop of Chanthaburi, my province not having become a diocese in its own right until 1965. Unless you read Thai, the best way to learn more about the history of Catholics in Thailand is from Wikipedia.

In addition to attending school, each day I was required by the Bishop to do three things: attend 5:30 a.m. Latin mass, study French, and make chili sauce for the Bishop. (Only the 5:30 a.m. mass was in Latin, the other masses were held in Thai.)

Bishop Samanchit gave me the choice of studying Latin or French, so I chose French. To this day my French is not nearly as good as my chili sauce!

Chili sauce is quite simple to make. Chop up some prikki-nu hot chili peppers, add garlic, lime and fish sauce. If for some reason I was detained and unable to make the Bishop's chili sauce, word would always get back to me that he had noticed that the chili sauce was not Anna's! This sounds like an exaggeration but when I last saw the Bishop ten years ago his first words to me were to ask about my chili sauce. In Thailand we take our spicy condiments very seriously. And yes, Anna's special chili sauce for the Bishop is in our condiment tray at True Thai!

Bishop Samanchit retired this spring. I know of the new bishop, Silvio Siripong Charatsri, because I went to the school he graduated from. My cousin Peter Surin Prasomphol, now known as Monsignor Peter, is still active in the church. My sister was very active in her order until her death in 1997. Sister Emile was very beloved and over 3,000 people turned out for her funeral service.

The patio is open!

I finally got a chance to look at the pictures we took of the new patio. This is my favorite.




But I have to admit I like this one too!



I think it might be too warm for most Minnesotans to want to sit outside this week, but I am Thai and this weather reminds me of home. I was a little bit surprised to discover that the wait staff also enjoys getting to spend time outdoors!