Mmm....Thai Food

The food here in Thailand is so yummy. I think I could only eat Thai food for the rest of my life and still be happy. If you have had Thai food in the US, then you pretty much know what it is like here. The food that they sell from the street stalls is superb...almost too beautiful to describe. The fruit stalls have heaps and heaps of gorgeous pomelos, pineapples, guavas and mangoes. They will carve it right up for you, put it in a bag and give you a skewer to eat it with. Then there are the stalls that have ears of corn still in their husk roasting. The smell and taste is too delicious to believe. I even tried the meat at the various stalls, which I wouldn't do normally because I am pretty picky about my meat. I had to try it though, cause it was so gorgeous. One stall had piles of different types of meat kebabs: chicken, beef, fish, prawn, meatball, fishball, etc. They were all neatly piled and very shiny and yummy looking. I tried to ask the stall owner which chicken skewer was made of breast meat, and he thought I was hilarious as I was trying to pantomime what I wanted. Once I got the kebabs, he poured in the bag some of the yummy Thai chili sauce they have here. They were delicious, although the meat had a little bit more fat and grisle than I am used to. I ordered squid from another stall, and that was so yummy, except that they didn't clean the squid out at all, I even had to take the pen out myself! They have stalls where you can choose your ingredients and they will stir fry it right there in front of you, and stalls where they fry up sort of an "Indian fry bread" like Grandma used to make. Unfortunately I didn't get to try everything that I wanted to. I could only eat so much in one trip! Hopefully, if I come back to Thailand with Matt I will get to try more new things. On this trip, I have been addicted to Som Tum, which is a spicy papaya salad that sometimes comes with prawns or squid. The good thing about food here is that it is pretty much good wherever you go, whether you are at a bus stop or a nice restaurant. The bus back from Ko Samet stopped at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, but all of a sudden there appeared an old woman with the a huge basket of fruit. I bought a mango from her and with it she gave me a little sack of a salty, sweet, spicy powder. The mixture complemented the sweetness of the mango really well, and it was something I had never tried before.

One thing I did try in Ko Samet was insects, a few different kinds. The was a cart selling them, and so I stopped by to have a look at the types of insects for sale. The woman who owned the cart was very excitedly showing me how to eat them and kept offering me samples. The samples were...interesting, but I really could not turn them down when she was being so nice. I definitely had a rude awakening when I tried this maggot looking insect. I figured that since they were fried they would all sort of taste like corn nuts or something, but boy was I wrong. On my first bite into the maggot type thing I felt all of the insides squish out into my mouth. It was really sickening, but I managed to swallow it. The grasshoppers were better because at least they were crunchy. The picture below shows the full assortment of insects for sale.


Yummy.