While Fern was in the hospital in Pattaya (Thailand) I was usually at the hospital, at our hotel, or in transit between the two places, and it was during this transit time that I took care of my most fundamental need – eating. There were a couple of different routes that I could take and within those routes there were different configurations of walking and riding the baht bus. I did a huge amount of walking, usually on busy roads which had a lot of good street food and if I timed things right I could hit the seafood market, the night market, or the mall – which was air conditioned and contained the supermarket. These walks provided me with a nice opportunity to relax and clear my head. Seeking out some interesting food gave me something to focus on other than Fern’s situation.
It also meant that almost everything was ready to eat immediately and served in a very portable manner. I’ve seen this food referred to as “fast food” and while it is definitely fast, and a lot of it happens to be deep fried, the resemblance to American fast food stops there. It’s made by individuals, at home or on the street, using very fresh ingredients and personalized recipes. A minimum of processed ingredients are used and the cooks are justifiably proud of their finely honed techniques. In many ways it’s exactly the opposite of American fast food.
Eventually I developed a pattern of trying to be at the hospital by about 9:00 a.m. so that I could be present when Fern’s doctor showed up in the morning. The hospital was surrounded by street vendors in the morning and I could grab a little breakfast before heading up to Fern’s room. Since she couldn’t eat food for most of that time I thought it might be cruel for me to bring my food up to her room and eat it in front of her so I sat in the lobby and ate my breakfast, which was almost always… fried chicken. A popular breakfast in Thailand.
A very friendly man, Jutri, had a cart which quickly became my favorite. He called it KFT, just to make sure there was no conflict with KFC, which I found pretty entertaining. Just as a side note, KFC is far more popular in southeast Asia than it is in the United States. When I told him that I was from Indiana, which neighbors the Kentucky homeland of KFC, he had no idea what I was talking about. To him, and probably everyone else in southeast Asia, it’s just three meaningless letters – K, F, and C.
Jutri also spoke English relatively well and was very chatty. I went to him almost every morning and talked with him. He asked about Fern’s progress every day and I took her to meet him when she finally got out of the hospital. I must have been something of an oddity to him and the other street vendors. He was proud of his chicken and it was definitely better than most. I usually got a big juicy thigh and some chicken skins from him. That’s right – chicken skins. One of my new favorite things! I’d probably seen fried chicken skins before but honestly it can be difficult to tell what each piece of meat is at a fried chicken cart. It just looks like a bunch of crispy fried chunks of meat and they include all sorts of cuts that we don’t see a whole lot of in the US. Fried chicken skins are so good, they’ve become a staple of my diet, whenever possible, and it all started here. Let’s have a closer look at the chicken skin department of Jutri’s cart.
It amazes me that this food hasn’t caught on in the US. These things satisfy my inner caveman like nothing else. Crunchy, greasy, salty, and meaty, with just enough seasoning in the light breading so as not to overpower the inherent chicken flavor. They’re great with some chili sauce but I’m sure they would be great with just about any kind of sauce or dip. Here are a couple more fine specimens.
Not a meal goes by that I don’t wish I had some chicken skins. They’re present at pretty much all of the night markets we went to in Thailand and we ate them often. Fern eventually came to love them as well, although I don’t think she fully recognized the health promoting properties of this tonic superfood. My enthusiasm for these cannot be overstated. Someday, when I have have a kitchen of my own again, you can bet I’ll be making fried chicken skins regularly and experimenting with the variety of foods that can be paired with that supremely savory crunch. Thanks Jutri.
If I was spending a long day at the hospital I needed to take a little break for some lunch but unfortunately the fried chicken carts were only there in the morning. Just around the corner was a noodle shop that caught my interest and I ate there several times. As far as I could tell it was a cross between Japanese and Thai which is something I’d never seen before, but it definitely worked. The menu consisted of a choice of about 6 types of noodles, 10 or 12 added ingredients, and a soup base which was a unique spicy fishy broth with ground peanuts in it. The extra ingredients were things like shiitake mushrooms, fish meatballs, squid, pork spare ribs, shrimp dumplings, and pork sausage. They dressed it up nicely with some fresh herbs and sliced green onions. Nobody there spoke any English so it took a little patience for them and myself to figure out how to order. It was worth the effort. Here’s one of my lunches of crispy noodle soup, a side of fried noodle “chips” with teriyaki dipping sauce, and a big sweet Thai iced coffee. Not too shabby.
Another food that I found myself eating several times on my way to the hospital is worth mentioning because it was just so strange, but surprisingly good. Passing by the mall in the afternoon, I just had to go inside because it was so hot outside. I’d take my time wandering through the grocery store, maybe pick up some fruit, and check out the food in the kiosks in the middle of the mall. There were some pretty interesting things available there. This was one such thing.
I have no idea what it’s called. It’s a mound of rice wrapped in a banana leaf but it’s much more complex than that. When I first saw it I assumed it would be a sweet dessert. As is frequently the case with Thai food, the appearance can be very misleading. The rice is saturated with a savory meaty sauce and contains beans and nuts of some sort. There’s a chunk of tender roasted pork in the center and the whole thing is topped with an assortment of salted dried fruits and some things that were either large boiled seeds or maybe small potato-like root vegetables or both. I would love to send one of these to a food laboratory for a full analysis because so few of the ingredients are familiar to me. Or I could learn to speak Thai and just ask the bored looking teenager who was selling them. One of these could easily serve as a meal and hold me over for a long time and my hands were always covered with pork fat after I ate them. It’s amazing what can be found at the malls in Thailand.
There were many other things that I discovered on those walks, particularly fermented sausages and various forms of fried seafood, but I’m sure you’re getting hungry by now so I’ll go into more detail about those later.
jim@snorkelbandits.com