Shopping for Produce in Thailand

Shopping for Produce in Thailand

In Thailand, I'm most interested in produce (fruits and veg). We're eating loads of street food and some restaurant chow, but my attention is keenly focused on the stuff that grows here, food items that may have limited or no availability in the United States.

Rose Apple



This fruit seems not to be related to the apple as we (in the Midwest) would know it, but it’s undoubtedly my favorite “apple.” It is a lush bright bite, the Rose Apple, and it’s native to Southeast Asia though grown, now, in places like California (where else? – note, there is another fruit called Rose Apple that grows in Australia, but the Thai variety is different: more red). Confession: regular apples have frequently made me feel slightly ill, and I’m not sure if it’s due to the apple itself, the skin, what’s regularly sprayed upon the fruit, or whatever, but many times I get flushed and queasy whenever I eat an apple; it’s been this way since single digits. I’m used to it, though, but I’d rather avoid it, and with this “apple,” I have no such trouble. Preternaturally crisp-tasting yet lovely, it’s beautiful to look at (somewhat pear-shaped) and eat; almost grape-like in its wateriness (and I use that term in the most complimentary sense). Lydia pointed out that the skin is “tender and thin and taut,” which it definitely is; there’s an easy snap when teeth pierce skin; added advantage is that Rose Apple has no seeds. At markets around various temple complexes in Bangkok, many vendors offer a variety of cut fruit, including the Rose Apple, which seems to be the one fruit that sells out first (always lots of mango, pineapple, left etc.). A bag of 3-4, cut as you see here, runs about 20 baht, or a little under 70 cents US. This is the season for Rose Apples, and I intend to eat them every day. Would love to enjoy with a tangy, dense cheddar, though I’m guessing that’s as rare in Bangkok as a down parka.

Don't know -- you might be able to find cheddar. My first trip to Thailand, which was almost 20 years ago, I found a 31 Flavors ice cream store in Chiang Mai -- and it was crowded with people in the gorgeous attire of the various hill tribes, all of whom were taking a break from selling at the night market. If they have B&R Jamoca Almond Fudge, could cheddar cheese be an impossibility?

Cynthia, it's definitely physically possible. I had very good ice cream last night, and they make yogurt here and there, but with Thailand (as with a few other cultures, like Chilean or North African) though resources exist to make cheese, there's not the culture of cheese-making (that you have in Europe or Wisconsin) that makes cheese readily available. Heck, for that matter, there are geese here so they could make down parkas, too.

There is cream, as I had ice cream there . . . though it seemed far more prevalent in Siem Reap.

David Hammond wrote:Cynthia, it's definitely physically possible. I had very good ice cream last night, and they make yogurt here and there, but with Thailand (as with a few other cultures, like Chilean or North African) though resources exist to make cheese, there's not the culture of cheese-making (that you have in Europe or Wisconsin) that makes cheese readily available. Heck, for that matter, there are geese here so they could make down parkas, too.

I understand that. But there are import shops. I just didn't know how desperate you were to pair your rose apple with cheese.

Oh -- and have you had fresh lotus seeds? A nice snack that is the sort of thing people offer friends but don't necessarily sell in the markets. Not that I'm worried about you running out of cool things to try.

If you are traveling to Thailand, a good resource for Thai food, especially street food, is produced by an American who currently lives in Bangkok and has been documenting street food all mover SE Asia.

http://migrationology.com/migrationology-101/

In addition to his blog, he has hundreds of hours of food vblogs on YouTube.

jlawrence01 wrote:If you are traveling to Thailand, a good resource for Thai food, especially street food, is produced by an American who currently lives in Bangkok and has been documenting street food all mover SE Asia.

http://migrationology.com/migrationology-101/

In addition to his blog, he has hundreds of hours of food vblogs on YouTube.

jlawrence, thanks, yes, I watched a few of these before I left; this guy is quirky but covers some good information in his videos. My daughters are convinced he's high in some of these, but I think he's just a very passionate enthusiast.

The Day in Thai Fruit: Maprang

When encountering a food I’ve never seen before, my first thought is: eat it. Stopping to pick up our breakfast feast at the magnificent food market next to our Bangkok airbnb, I spotted an unrecognizable fruit tucked demurely among the sliced Rose Apple (which I also bought) and the usual pineapple and watermelon. This unidentified fruit looked a little like sliced Manila mango, mostly yellow meat with smears of magenta, but I knew it wasn’t mango (a fruit I adore; I wrote a poem about mango in the 70s, when it was still relatively unknown in the Midwest).



Back at the apartment, I tasted: the texture was slightly woody, with a graininess that was not unpleasant and a slightly honey-like flavor of dates. It was okay, and I strongly suspect that this fruit I bought was not quite ripe (eating young unripe fruit, like papaya and guava, is, as you probably know, common in SE Asia).

Later in the day, biking around Ayutthaya, we stopped at a festival of some sort and there was a lot of food being served (I’d like to see stats on the percentage of the Thai population involved in food production and preparation; I’m guessing it’s high; there are small stands serving food everywhere). A nice little lady was selling some kind of pickle, and I immediately recognized it as a prepared version of the fresh fruit I’d eaten earlier. I liked this green pickled version quite a bit more than the yellow fresh version, and I bought a bag (much more than we could finish in the time we had left in the capitol city, but the lady was really nice and I wanted to see how this fruit fared under further processing).

Pickled, Maprang was much more interesting, the texture somewhat waxy and the pickling solution added a layer of complementary sourness over the just-ever-so-sweet fruit. I asked the nice lady the name of the fruit and I thought she said something like “Mac-dong.” Googling, I determined that the actual name of this mystery mango-looking (and related) fruit is likely Maprang, a name that’s somewhat phonetically similar to Mac-dong (Roman alphabet versions of Thai words are frequently misleading).

Maprang is a fruit I don’t believe I’ve ever seen in the United States and most interesting because unusual (to me). I’m glad I ate it. In the pix, the yellower is fresh, and the greener the pickled. Like many other mildly flavored fruits, a sprinkling of sugar-chili-salt would be a welcome enhancement to fresh Maprang.

David Hammond wrote:
This fruit seems not to be related to the apple as we (in the Midwest) would know it, but it’s undoubtedly my favorite “apple.” It is a lush bright bite, the Rose Apple, and it’s native to Southeast Asia though grown, now, in places like California (where else? – note, there is another fruit called Rose Apple that grows in Australia, but the Thai variety is different: more red). Confession: regular apples have frequently made me feel slightly ill, and I’m not sure if it’s due to the apple itself, the skin, what’s regularly sprayed upon the fruit, or whatever, but many times I get flushed and queasy whenever I eat an apple; it’s been this way since single digits. I’m used to it, though, but I’d rather avoid it, and with this “apple,” I have no such trouble. Preternaturally crisp-tasting yet lovely, it’s beautiful to look at (somewhat pear-shaped) and eat; almost grape-like in its wateriness (and I use that term in the most complimentary sense). Lydia pointed out that the skin is “tender and thin and taut,” which it definitely is; there’s an easy snap when teeth pierce skin; added advantage is that Rose Apple has no seeds. At markets around various temple complexes in Bangkok, many vendors offer a variety of cut fruit, including the Rose Apple, which seems to be the one fruit that sells out first (always lots of mango, pineapple, left etc.). A bag of 3-4, cut as you see here, runs about 20 baht, or a little under 70 cents US. This is the season for Rose Apples, and I intend to eat them every day. Would love to enjoy with a tangy, dense cheddar, though I’m guessing that’s as rare in Bangkok as a down parka.

David, thanks for reminding me of this one, it's a really refreshing fruit. They are all over the place in Taiwan, and they're especially good eating in the humid tropical heat. Strangely enough I feel the same way you do about regular apples, they tend to give me unpleasant tingling sensations and mild heartburn.

If you have pictures and experiences at Thai vegetable markets I'd love to see them.

Sea Grapes

We Italians share a folk belief that when you encounter a food you’ve never had before, you’re entitled to a wish. These last few days in Bangkok have earned me a number of wishes.

Shopping in yet another market that sprang up in the night next to our apartment on a particularly busy thoroughfare in this unlovely city, I found a small vendor selling just one thing: bunches of tightly arrayed, tiny glistening green balls on thin filament stems. At first I thought they might be fish roe. No. Peeled finger limes. Nuh-unh. This was clearly something different.
I asked the vendor what it was called and she said “salad, yeah, salad.” I must have looked at her a little funny and then she clarified, “Tsim, is Tsim” (that’s my phonetic guess: it was a word that began with a “t/s” sound as in “tsunami” and rhymes with “him.”).

Like so many vendors of edible exotica in Thailand, this lady seemed politely amused at my excited interest in her wares; she glanced at a friend and giggled as I stared wide-eyed at a food I’d never seen before.

Wonderful, strange, and beautiful, this vegetable came in clusters like green micro-grapes, each about the size of a BB. This was the most expensive item we had bought at this market: about 100 baht or 3 bucks for enough to fill two hands). It came with a container of sauce tasting distinctly of cilantro and chili, which we tried but didn’t use much because it tended to steamroll the flavor of this delicate plant. About that flavor, there was a saltiness but also a remarkably rich unctuousness, with maybe hints of watercress or cucumber. The mound of greens displayed various shades, though mostly darker, jade-toned globules of satisfyingly savory stuff, intriguing textures in a plant I’m sure I’ve never tasted before, sweet saline pops in every bite.

We’re eating a lot of mind-blowing prepared foods in Thailand, but the range and depth of raw materials is equally stunning.