Category : Review
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What / Why :
M.R. Kuekrit Pramotch has this to say about that well-known chili sauce or chili paste known in Thai as naam prik “Besides being the main side dish of Thai cuisine, naam prik is also placed in the center on a tray of food. Naam prik will always be positioned in the center surrounded by the other dishes. Naam prik itself is not only just a Thai side dish, but also a part of Thai culture. All Thais recognize naam prik, and know how to eat it properly. This means they have to know what to have with it and what to dip into the naam prik, such as fermented pork or grilled fish. Things like this are all part of the Thai cultural heritage dating back to ancient times.” M.R. Kuekrit Pramotch is very famous, being a politician, artist, writer and cook. He wrote a popular column in “Siam-Ratch” called “Soy-Suan-Plu”. It was such great fun as if it wasn't a cooking story at all.
Naam prik is a dish that we're all familiar with from time immemorial. There are various kinds of Naam prik; so many it’s exhausting when I try to explain them to foreigners. Nowadays, not only foreigners but also some of my Thai friends know only a little about the types of Naam prik available. Even worse, only few of them know the stories behind them, the ingredients and how to make them. Here is a story that shows the many varieties of naam prik. Once upon a time, there was a king who in the manner of the Scheherazade story from “The Book of One Thousand and One Nights”, the Arabian folk tale ordered his underlings to find and send one mistress to him for each night, and put her to death the next morning. However, there was one intelligent mistress who knew her king loved his food, so she told the story about how to make naam prik on their first night. By her superb style of storytelling, the king wanted to eat that naam prik, so he let that mistress live for another day to serve him the dish she had described, this continued every night. She was spared being put to death, moreover it said that she died from senility while telling the story of simmered naam prik. She had been telling stories of naam prik since she was young until the last day of her life without running out of naam prik recipes.
Recently, before the evening drama called “Phan Tai Norasing” was aired on TV, a friend of mine who is a middle school teacher told me this funny story. She asked her class “Students, is there any of you who knows about Phan Tai Norasing?” One little boy put his hand up and answered her proudly “I know what it is. I have it at home.” She was stunned for a while, and asked him for the explanation why Phan Tai Norasing, the hero of justice, was in his house. The little boy gave her his answer, “I have it! I really do. My granny has that with her toast. But I don't really like it though, it's smelly.” Phan Tai Norasing is a brand of naam prik! In fact, according to the story of my friend, I can assume that this generation of kids know more about naam prik from their surroundings than their historical heroes; I have no idea whether to be pleased about it or not. For today, I shall end this naam prik story right here because it might take me forever, like that mistress in the tale, to tell every story of naam prik. I will return to stories of naam prik another time.
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