Jaime wrote:If you want 'The Real Thailand' head up to Tak, Kamphaeng Phet or some other 'real' place. Stay in an outlying village, get up at 2 am to go to the local market, buy food-stuff that smells like it shouldn't be eaten, then back to bed for a couple of hours before you spend the morning planting rice (catching frogs for lunch as you go) then get pissed on lao kao and sleep on a bamboo platform for another couple of hours before getting back to the field. Spend what's left of the afternoon drinking lao kao and having 'sanook' with friends (in fluent local dialect of course) having been to the abattoir to get the raw ingredients for larb, your evening meal, which you eat a variant of most of the time:
Then have a cold shower from a mosquito filled tank in a sweaty concrete out house and go to bed when the sun goes down at 6:30 pm like everyone else does because there is nothing else to do, although if you are lucky you might be able to watch some Likay on TV before dozing off on the teak-hard wooden floor where you will spend the night. Do this for the whole two weeks of your holiday and see if you can keep smiling for as long as the locals do.
Subways, McD's, Burger King, Hilton, Svensens, Kodak, Ten Pin Bowling, Go-karts, Cineplex, Farang owned bars, imported beer, Italian restaurants, British Butchers, English Breakfast, Steak and Kidney Pies, comfy furniture, milk and cheese, wine merchants, cleaner beaches, BBC news, UBC sports. BRING IT ALL ON!!!!! I WANT MORE, MORE, MORE!!!!
Newsflash: Hua Hin is a TOURIST TOWN - Get with the programme!
You describe the village I used to visit in Buriram so well - except the rice planting/harvesting. The leeches put me off.
I'll be heading for a Subway soon. Pretty sure I've never had one before, although i've heard a lot about them.
Lomuamart wrote:You describe the village I used to visit in Buriram so well
I think life in rural Thailand is pretty much 'same-same evely-where!' Having said that, I have never been to Isaan but have spent lots of time in the North, as Mrs Jaime is a 'Lanna-Thai' lady. Part of my reason for identifying Hua Hin as a location for a holiday home and possible eventual retirement (long way off yet) was that many of my earlier holidays to Thailand took the form of the description I posted and I just couldn't take any more!
Hua Hin has the best of both culinary worlds - if something like raw larb takes your fancy then you can get it no problem if you know where and how to ask. But give me a steak any day. In between these two polar opposites is the stuff on the menus of all the Thai restaurants - green curry, chicken with oyster sauce & cashews, beef fried with chillies etc. etc. I hardly ever see this stuff eaten at home up country, where my experience is that it is derided as 'boring food.' Even if it is cooked, bone and gristle usually take the place of meat, which will have been removed and transformed into something that resembles anything but food.
The only 'restaurant' dish I have seen commonly eaten up country is moo pat grapau, which is eaten both at home and at stalls.
Back to sandwiches. I have eaten at Subway (BKK-Sukhumvit) and was a bit disappointed as the bread was a bit cardboardy. This was my only experience of Subway anywhere in the world so lets hope the HH franchisee gets the bread right.
I have just written a long reply to this and when I pressed submit it asked me to re-logon and then prompltly sent my message in to the either. I believe Quantum Mechanics will provide the answer.
This reply will be shorter which I am sure will make the mods happier.
Man has been moving around this planet for many millenia (That is the plural of millenium BTW). They always bring the culinary skills (if they have any) with them. This means that cuisines seen as foreign will gradually become the norm.
Pete is right, Hamburgers are from Hamburg, Tikka Masala and Balti is from England, Sate is from Thailand, Texas Toothpicks are from Mexico and Vodka was first produced in Poland, etc, etc etc.
In this modern age of global travel it is obvious that McShit, Fucking Gonuts and Kenfucky Tried Pigeon will appear in Thailand.
As someone mentioned at least with Subways you can pick your fillings and if you avoid the Proctor and Gamble sauces they can be quite a healthy change from Thai food. I have eaten them twice and the first time someone else paid. The second time I had to call an ambulance from San Paulo as I collapsed on the spot when presented with the bill.
If you don't like fast food outlets or European supermarket chains then don't go there.
The world is a rapidly changing planet. Keep up with it or become a hermit.
Anyway, thank the Buddha that the Italians and the Chinese "discovered the Americas and that Leif Erricson went straight back home otherwise the world would be full of dried fish restaurants.
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Jaime wrote:If you want 'The Real Thailand' head up to Tak, Kamphaeng Phet or some other 'real' place. Stay in an outlying village, get up at 2 am to go to the local market, buy food-stuff that smells like it shouldn't be eaten, then back to bed for a couple of hours before you spend the morning planting rice (catching frogs for lunch as you go) then get pissed on lao kao and sleep on a bamboo platform for another couple of hours before getting back to the field. Spend what's left of the afternoon drinking lao kao and having 'sanook' with friends (in fluent local dialect of course) having been to the abattoir to get the raw ingredients for larb, your evening meal, which you eat a variant of most of the time:
Then have a cold shower from a mosquito filled tank in a sweaty concrete out house and go to bed when the sun goes down at 6:30 pm like everyone else does because there is nothing else to do, although if you are lucky you might be able to watch some Likay on TV before dozing off on the teak-hard wooden floor where you will spend the night. Do this for the whole two weeks of your holiday and see if you can keep smiling for as long as the locals do.
Subways, McD's, Burger King, Hilton, Svensens, Kodak, Ten Pin Bowling, Go-karts, Cineplex, Farang owned bars, imported beer, Italian restaurants, British Butchers, English Breakfast, Steak and Kidney Pies, comfy furniture, milk and cheese, wine merchants, cleaner beaches, BBC news, UBC sports. BRING IT ALL ON!!!!! I WANT MORE, MORE, MORE!!!!
Newsflash: Hua Hin is a TOURIST TOWN - Get with the programme!
Now Come on Jaime, you can't fool me that easily. You have just described life in Aberbargoed and changed a few of the local delicacies.
I suppose that when you venture into the Brecon Beacons you will go hunting for Tigers with a flint tipped spear.
Just make sure that you keep off the Taboo and watch out for the Man Eating Sabre Tooth Sheep.
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[quote="Guess"]thank the Buddha that the Italians and the Chinese "discovered the Americas[quote]
Really? I thought they only arrived as stow-aways with olive oil and laundry.
If by Italians you mean Cristobal Colon then he was, of course, an exiled Genoese (no such thing as Italians then) sailing in Spanish ships, with Spanish crews and financed by the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand & Isabella. He did possess incredible foresight and determination for an Italian.., er I mean, Genoese though!
[quote="Jaime]If by Italians you mean Cristobal Colon then he was, of course, an exiled Genoese (no such thing as Italians then) sailing in Spanish ships, with Spanish crews and financed by the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand & Isabella. He did possess incredible foresight and determination for an Italian.., er I mean, Genoese though![/quote]
I've never seen the word "Geonese". I have seen "Genovese"?
But, Guess is right. The Chinese and Italian explorers met up in Chicago, and never left. It's the only place in the world that serves chow mein with pesto sauce and stir fried antipasto. Pete
Guess wrote:Now Come on Jaime, you can't fool me that easily. You have just described life in Aberbargoed and changed a few of the local delicacies.
I suppose that when you venture into the Brecon Beacons you will go hunting for Tigers with a flint tipped spear.
Just make sure that you keep off the Taboo and watch out for the Man Eating Sabre Tooth Sheep.
Aberbargoed is much worse than that! Thankfully there are no man-eating tigers or even sheep but there are plenty of man-eating slappers. I would not entertain the idea of hunting them as they are far too dangerous!
Jaime, here you have a receipt of "ragu genovese".
2 lbs. onion
1 clove garlic
1 celery stalk
1 carrot
1 oz. lard
1 oz. salame
1 oz. prosciutto
3 oz. olive oil
2 oz. pancetta, chopped
1 oz. tomato paste
1 lb. lean round beef
1 cup white wine
salt, pepper
beef bouillon, as needed
Cut onion, garlic, celery and carrot into julienne. Coarsely chop lard, salame and prosciutto. Place the lot into a baking pan, adding oil and pancetta. Sauté slowly, over low heat until the vegetables are soft but not browned. Brown it all around, add the beef and dilute the paste into 1/2 cup of lukewarm water and add to the pot together with the wine and place the roast into the oven at 175ºC. Cook for 3-4 hours, adding beef bouillon as necessary. Salt and pepper to taste. The final result should be that of a rather dark, glazed sauce.
This condiment is good for ziti or any other type of maccheroni with a large hole. The meat can be served together with the ragù or as a separate course.
Jaime wrote:Sounds great!! But can you put it in a sandwich?
So you see Jaime, in a roundabout way we have got back to subject of filled bread products.
Sorry to be pedantic but on my reference to Italians (plural), I appreciate that Khun Colon was almost certainly born in Genoa which is now part of Italy. The crew of the three ships (if you can call them that) were nearly all Spanish including four criminals. As for John Cabot (English name) and Vespucci they were almost certainly Italian.
Additionally a common myth is that Queen Isobella sold the crown jewels to fund Colon's journey. The facts recarded in historical accounts of the era is that she borrowed the money from the Italians.
It was almost certain that when either Cabot or Vespucci first set foot on the mainland that there were no Subway fast food outlets and many of the crew died of starvation.
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I have eaten in subway in three countries - I have no idea why? Maybe desperation?
The first was an early start in Bkk and the only thing I could find open that I could trust my stomach with at that time - okay for flabby cheese and crap ham, but passable. Did the job.
In the UK it was after a few sherberts, so not fair to comment.
The worst was Oz. In Noosa. God awful.
These places all have a smell of their own, can't work out what it is? Maybe the polish or something, not nice though.
I'm not against them, but I'm capable of making my own sandwiches.
Guess wrote:Sorry to be pedantic but on my reference to Italians (plural), I appreciate that Khun Colon was almost certainly born in Genoa which is now part of Italy. The crew of the three ships (if you can call them that) were nearly all Spanish including four criminals. As for John Cabot (English name) and Vespucci they were almost certainly Italian.
Additionally a common myth is that Queen Isobella sold the crown jewels to fund Colon's journey. The facts recarded in historical accounts of the era is that she borrowed the money from the Italians.
Well up to half of Columbus's cash is supposed to have come from Italian speculators but there is a name missing from the list of others you mention; Vespucci (Spanish ships), Cabot (English ships), Ericsson and......
Madog ab Owain Gwynedd.
Google it - fascinating stuff and I am sure you can guess where he came from. It's been a pleasure edicating you!
Now, I promise no more off-topic comments from me in this thread!
But I have seen the word "Genoese" - try googling it! 
