Aladdin’s Garden

Forget the Garden of Eden. I don’t think it compares with Aladdin’s Garden which is Thailand. Its cup runneth over with gardens and food, particularly fruits of the most extraordinary kinds.

In order to get out of Bangkok, we took an excursion outside the city to the floating markets. The farther we drove the more greenery we saw. Skyscrapers turned into low buildings and small parks became large fields. We nearly jumped from the moving van when we saw our first large rice field complete with a worker in the field with his conical bamboo hat. Our astute guide and driver found a rice field where we could stop to take photos. They were amused but happily accommodated the crazy American tourists. It’s the equivalent of tourists taking pictures of a corn field in Texas or the Eastern Shore of Maryland. No matter – we were thrilled.

And we remained thrilled as we boarded a long boat for the trip through narrow canals to the floating market. Bangkok is known as the "Venice of the East."

The canals wound through coconut groves, bamboo huts overhanging the water with green mangoes hanging heavy on the trees. The floating market is a series of piers where shoppers walk by perusing the vendors who are floating in long, narrow boats like canoes. The boats are stacked several deep so that goods and money are exchanged via a small net at the end of a long pole. Food, food and more food. Old women had boats overloaded with mangoes, pineapple, tangerines, and papaya – the most familiar items – that they would slice on the spot. Then there are the guava, rambutan, mangosteen and rose apple. Others were cooking inside their tiny boats and dishing up foods to waiting hands. Tiny “monkey” bananas (half the size of the ones we typically see) were fried and served hot. Tiny, custard pies, slightly bigger than a silver dollar, were fabulous coconut pancakes. And, my favorite, coconut ice cream served inside a freshly cracked coconut and on a bed of the coconut meat scraped from the sides as we watched. Yummy! Not everything was a fruit. An old man made soup from his boat heating it on the spot with a small burner.

On our way back, our driver took us the scenic route through the fields and orchards. We saw mango and papaya trees, coconut groves and guava trees. There was even a grove of dragon fruit plants that looked like yucca gone astray. The fruits are sold in carts all over Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Fruit drinks, made fresh, are on every corner. Coconuts seem to be the workhorse though. We stopped at a coconut facility where they showed us how coconuts are used. The long, then coconut blooms (the look like overgrown ears of corn) are whacked off at the bottom so that the juice is drained. The bloom is left on the tree to develop into the coconut. Meanwhile the juice is cooked for 90 minutes in a large vat until it caramelizes into coconut sugar. It tasted like….caramelized sugar. It’s used in Thai cooking as we would experience later. The coconuts are harvested, cracked and drained and the meat is scraped using a small bench with sharp teeth on the end.

While fruits are a star, the flowers are not far behind. Shrubs of hibiscus and bougainvillea grow in the highway medians. Tree-sized dracena line country roads, as do shrubs of croton in many varieties. Of course, lotus flowers float in decorative bowls placed around temples, hotels, and more.

We literally walk past cart after cart of prepared foods, dried fish, and fruits on every street and alley. And much of it goes into the traditional Thai dishes which we both love. It was only natural that with no plans for the weekend, we took a Thai cooking class at Silom Thai Cooking School with Sanusi Mareh. It was only us and a young, newly married couple from Sweden. We met Sanusi on the street and he took us to the market to do our shopping. It was great fun to finally learn about the unknown vegetables and the essential Thai spices (for example, they have three types of basil and four types of ginger). After our shopping spree – vegetables and herbs for four cost about $3.50 – he led us to the cooking school down a long alley.

A quick side note. One of the delightful things I’ve come to love about Thailand is the custom of removing your shoes before going inside. It’s primarily a cleanliness thing. In the temples, people kneel and bow to the Buddha so a clean floor is essential. In a traditional Thai home, meals are eaten while sitting on mats on the floor. Keeping the floors clean is a priority – so, shoes are removed and left at the entrance. But I love the sensual feel of it. There’s something about walking around in bare feet on a smooth, cool surface that just feels great. At the cooking school, our shoes were left outside and we padded around prepping food, cooking and eating in bare feet. How great is that?

In the span of three hours we prepared five Thai dishes – tom yum soup, pad thai, chicken salad with sticky rice, green curry paste for chicken curry, and a dessert of rubies in coconut milk (the "rubies" were actually turnips -that's right, turnips - soaked in flavored syrups). We prepped the veggies, sliced and diced the herbs and even pounded out green curry paste from scratch (we’ll use a food processor at home even though they insist it isn’t as good). We stood outside on a narrow terrace with a row of woks in front and sautéed, boiled or stir fried each dish. The instruction was great and everything tasted fabulous. Mike loved the tom yum soup and I can’t decide my favorite between the pad thai and chicken curry. The chicken salad with sticky rice as a delightful and yummy surprise. We have the cookbook and are ready to try it all again from our indoor kitchen in Annapolis. But – maybe, just maybe – we’ll cook barefooted.