Slowly Making Tamales etc., Part IV

If you want your tamales to be light and fluffy and to taste right, you must use lard. Sorry, it’s not my fault, it’s just a fact of nature, and there’s nothing you can do about it but kick back and render up some hog fat. Because the local Thai pork is raised more naturally and from fattier breeds than we would find in the States, I’m expecting to end up with especially tasty lard. This might strike some of you as a contradiction in terms, but I implore you to challenge yourself to rise above society’s bias and to accept lard as a necessary ingredient for some dishes, albeit one that ought not to be used every day.

Fresh animal products in Thailand are particularly delicious. The tiny chickens have a rich flavor belying their bantam size. The beef cuts may not be as tender as their American counterparts, but all the more justification for slow-cooking some top round for the most succulent country-style steaks I’ve ever tried. There’s also a sun-dried beef product that’s more moist and perishable than American-style jerky; it’s savory if a little gamey and a good snacking match when sipping beer on the rocks. But for my money, the best meat in Thailand is the pork, which tends to be well-marbled, tender and full-flavored, as opposed to those quick-drying, low-fat loin cuts we find packaged in the States. If a Thai pork chop is tastier than the American version, I’m hoping for similar results from the lard.

In the past, I’ve made my own lard from the long strips of backfat my Hawaiian in-laws let me take after helping out with the annual luau. On a wimpy American stove, rendering is not big deal as long as you’re patient with the low heat, but as mentioned in Part I my ferocious Thai stove will not oblige the use of this method. Enter the slow-cooker. I’ve never tried to make lard in a slow-cooker before, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more it seems the perfect method.

One more consideration when home-rendering lard is what you intend to use it for. If you’re going to make a flaky crust for a fruit pie, you want white lard. If you want to make tamales or refritos, you want your lard to be light golden brown. The difference is in how long it cooks: the longer you render, the darker the lard; the darker the lard, the more flavorful it becomes. In any case, even the white lard you make at home will probably look better than the ghastly pasty white found in highly processed supermarket lard.

Sunday. Moved the beans to the fridge, set the crock to soak for easier cleaning. During yesterday’s trip to the megamart, I procured a small sheet of fresh pork fat for about fifty cents. Right after waking up today, I put the package in the freezer to get firm, had a cup of coffee, then washed a molehill of dishes including the crock. The pork fat was now a little more solid and that much easier to cube. Again using the crock’s high setting, I started to render the cubed pork fat at about 10 am.

I Skyped the Momster and had another cup of coffee. By noon, the pieces of fat were bubbling away, submerged in their own liquid lard. I stirred it up to separate the pieces and turned the heat setting on the slow-cooker to low. Then off to the market for some more filling ingredients. Then off to the lake to soak up some rays and some beers. Then to the hospital for a check-up on my shoulder.

When I returned home around 7 pm, the white fat had changed to golden brown cracklings. After straining the liquid through a sieve, I’m thinking the color might be a little too dark, and I’m a bit concerned that the flavor will be too strong. But tomorrow will be a busy cooking day, so rather than waste more time getting to the market and rendering a new batch, I’m going to bed so I can forge ahead in the morning.

Slowly Making Tamales in Thailand with One and a Half Arms, Part III

Saturday. While waking up in the late morning, I drained and rinsed the pinto beans, put them into a crockpot, and filled it to the top with water. With the crockpot covered on high heat, I made a pot of chai masala and started working on organizing the 1500+ pictures of my students I've been taking over the last three weeks. After a couple hours I stirred the beans and found they were still hard - no worries, mate, good food takes time.

Frijoles de olla is one of the simplest and yet most satisfying contributions to world cuisine, and preparing them in the crockpot is pretty much no-fail. However, past experience has shown that if you’re lazy about scraping beans off the sides of the pot during the occasional stir, they will eventually stick and char a little, especially on the high setting. But not to worry - even while drinking beer and getting lost in the virtual world, your senses will remind you that it's time to stir. Beans are attention-starved little bitches sometimes: hey, smell me; hey, listen to me bubbling and farting away; hey, where's the chips 'n' salsa? Stirring the beans about once an hour will ensure a smoother consistency and more even cooking.

When the beans got mostly tender, after about 5 hours, I added three generous pinches of salt and ½ tablespoon of ground roasted cumin. I mashed some of the beans and let it simmer for another hour. Time for a taste: the bean juice was almost salty enough, but the beans themselves not nearly so. I added another 2 large pinches of salt, then mashed away. As I stirred, the smell of the beans was making my mouth water, so I decided to go out for dinner and shopping; while I was gone I left the lid off the crock so the beans would thicken up.

First stop was Carrefour, the megamart about a 20-minute walk from my house. They tend to have good prices on supermarket items such as sugar, chips, vodka, and boxed juice. Before the surgery, when I could still ride the motorcycle, I preferred to buy my fresh meat and vegetables from the local markets, but now that I’m on foot even the closest fresh market is difficult to get to.

Behind Carrefour’s parking lot, on Fridays and Saturdays a vibrant night market jams the back streets. In addition to six blocks of stalls selling shoes, clothing, toys, and electronics, there are two blocks of food stalls. Sadly, I found that the “turtle egg” vendor (see Part II) had already left or simply wasn’t there. But I still found plenty to eat: a small bag of fried chicken rinds (like pork rinds but made with chicken skin) to be dipped in namprik num (a spicy eggplant dip); spicy sausage salad; grilled pork with sticky rice; an ice-cold can of Leo beer, which rapidly warmed to spit-temperature as I tried to drink it down; and a novel presentation of the classic Thai soup known as gaeng juet or dtom juet (“plain soup”).

I’ve been coming to this market once or twice a month since I moved to the neighborhood last June. As well as I think I know all that it has to offer, I still manage to discover new dishes there. The “plain soup” is one of the few Thai food items that don’t scorch a delicate foreigner’s mouth with spice; Thais love it because it so successfully compliments rich and spicy curries. It’s one of the dishes I like to prepare alongside panang curry for my show-off menu. Usually it features chunks of soft egg-tofu or small meatballs, sometimes mushrooms and bean thread noodles, almost always a combination of carrot and cabbage. I had never before seen the version I found this night. In addition to the expected carrots and cabbage, this soup had strips of blade-cut pork with a crowning jewel: a whole small cabbage head hollowed out and filled with seasoned ground pork.

When I got back home two hours after leaving, the beans had cooked to the perfect consistency for my taste, that is thick and creamy. I turned off the heat, slapped the lid back on, had a couple cocktails and went to bed ready to dream of the next steps….

Slowly Making Tamales in Thailand with One and a Half Arms, Part II

Six weeks after shoulder surgery, I can use my right hand for light duty, but nothing more demanding than slicing veggies or washing dishes. I can scratch my face and my groin but not my head. I haven’t been cooking much lately, which hasn’t been as difficult as I expected – if there’s any place in the world to live without a kitchen, it’s Thailand.

There are thousands of food stalls and dozens of fresh markets in Chiang Mai alone, and my walks to and from work take me past an array of options that makes me drool just thinking about it: fried chicken, fried bananas, fresh-cut fruit, grilled chicken and pork and squid, noodle soups, hanging ducks, stewed pork leg, oyster omelets, sweet iced tea and coffee, and a newly discovered favorite translated as “turtle egg” or some kind of “bird egg,” which is a fried ball of semi-sweet dough that’s crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Almost as ubiquitous as the food stalls are small family-run restaurants offering both made-to-order and steam-table dishes; for about a buck a person you can have a nice lunch of fried noodles or green curry or pad gra pao on rice. And I finally figured out how to order online a pizza for delivery. All of which means I’ve been perfectly content to let others do the cooking for me.

However, the desire not to waste the dry goods I have left, coupled with the increasing need for physical activity, has drawn me back to the kitchen to whip up more exotic fare. More than any other cuisine, I’ve missed Mexican-style food the most. Although Chiang Mai has a couple Mexican restaurants with adequate Mexlike dishes (www.miguels-cafe.com and www.thesalsakitchen.com), they tend to be overpriced and not nearly as delicious as what I can make for myself. As mentioned in Part I, that sack of masa harina is calling to me: ¡Ey, gringo, hágate tamales pronto!

In Part I, I mentioned the slow-cooker, which behind the hot-water pump and the toaster oven is the kitchen appliance I use the most. Slow cooking with an electric slow-cooker should not be confused with the “slow cooking” advocated by the Slow Food movement, founded on the idea that good food and “fast food” are all too often mutually exclusive. Being under-employed by American standards, I’ve had the luxury in Thailand of taking my own sweet time when I cook and of having time to think about How Slow Food Can Save the World from Itself. Ultimately I have found that Slow Cooking is a lifestyle choice, one I will be loathe to give up when I come back to the States in May. Anyway, I like to think of myself as a Slow Cook who enjoys using the slow-cooker….

The tamale feast I have planned will be four days in the making.

Friday. Before my 45-minute walk to work, I picked through ½ pound dried pinto beans, removed a molar-crushing pebble, and covered the beans in several inches of water. Man, that was hard.

Slowly Making Tamales in Thailand with One and a Half Arms, Part I

After a long hiatus from any kind of writing, and an even longer break from weblogging, I’ve decided to come back for a few days. I can’t write a travelogue because I’m not really traveling, and I know everyone gets tired of hearing about other people’s daily routines. So what you’re looking at is partly a cooking journal and partly a last-ditch effort to describe this ex-pat’s lifestyle. This type of cooking project is what passes for adventure these days. I have set out to make a tamale feast as authentically as I can, taking as much time as I need to, savoring some final idle days as the number of my weeks in Thailand dwindles toward single-digits.

I need to start using up the dry goods in the cupboard. One of these items is a sack of masa harina for tamales, which I brought here from my last visit to the States.

Some notes about using the slow cooker…. Mine is an Imarflex brand, so I shouldn’t properly call it a “Crockpot,” although I probably will out of habit. The stoves in Thailand are almost always run on propane. The one I have delivers a mighty jet of flame, which is great if you want to boil a pot of water or stir-fry a dish, but not so great for slow-cooking. On the lower settings, the flame is still hot enough to scorch a pot of beans, or else it gets so low that it gutters out. The solution is the electric slow cooker.

Known throughout the world as a convenient appliance for the working family, a slow cooker allows us to toss in a hunk of meat and some seasonings, slog off to work, and eventually return home to a savory-smelling home and a hot meal. Since I moved to Thailand, I don’t have to rush around so much, so for me the slow cooker justifies my aimlessly dicking around the house all day because I can surf the internet, listen to music, drink beer, and still say I’m cooking.

There are already hundreds of thousands of recipes for the slow-cooker, so I don’t pretend that I will contribute much in that area. Instead, I would ask you to consider this limited series of weblog entries as a description of the good life, or at least a version of the good life. This is a siren’s call to my wage-slave friends, to opt-out from the rat race, to sell off your house and your car and if necessary your children, and to abandon yourself to the temptation of sloth, the easiest of all the deadly sins….

State of Emergency in Bangkok

Without TV, newspapers or the internet, those of us working in Chiang Mai might never know there's a big mess in Bangkok. For the last several months in the capital hundreds and sometimes thousands of yellow-shirted protesters have been carrying signs and chanting, occasionally disrupting traffic, but really just making noise to give the new government a daily reminder that many Thai citizens feel they're a bunch of corrupt puppets of Taksin, the prime minister who was ousted by the military almost exactly two years ago. The protest organizers, known as the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), apparently believe that four or five months is plenty of time to decide that the constitution and government -- those the people voted for last December after more than a year of military dictatorship -- are bogus and should be scrapped already.

As many of you have read, about a week and a half ago the PAD took things a step farther by taking over NBT, the state TV channel, and by occupying the Prime Minister's residence, known as Government House. Within a couple hours, the NBT offices were handed back to the state and the responsible protesters arrested, but Government House remains occupied. Over the weekend PAD-supporters disrupted air traffic by occupying several regional airstrips, specifically targeting tourist magnets such as Phuket and Krabi; after a brief reprieve, they are occupied again (except for Phuket). The baht is sinking even faster than the dollar and is currently the weakest it has been in the 18 months I've been here. Monday night the situation turned bloody as pro-government mobs clashed with the PAD. The prime minister on Tuesday declared a state of emergency, giving the military the option of sweeping through the streets as they did on Sep. 6, 2006. This is not likely to happen without royal approval or worsening violence because the military does not support the prime minister. The transportation and utility unions are threatening to cut Bangkok off from the rest of Thailand, which could be as early as Wednesday. Even more dire actions threatened by PAD are outlined here: http://www.notthenation.com/pages/news/getnews.php?id=578 (well, not really; this site is kind of like Thailand's version of The Onion).

All of this you could have found out on your own. What I can tell you is that although people in Chiang Mai seem very concerned about the situation, as far as anyone can tell, we are safe so far. No signs of protesting or unrest here, although a couple weeks ago a PAD rally was disrupted by a pro-government mob who attacked with rotten eggs and vegetables. There is no reason to fear for one's safety at the moment, and I remain confident that even if things get worse they will not degenerate to the point where foreigners will need to flee.

And as bad as things seem in Bangkok right now, I believe we are witnessing an incredible event in the history of democracy. I'm not sure it's a good event, but it is incredible, or at least incredibly interesting.

Imagine for a moment how the U.S. or British or Russian government would respond to several hundred protesters occupying a government building. Whoever was involved would be dead or arrested or both, and we would not still be talking about it two weeks later. Although I don't agree with tactics like this, I understand why some feel they must be used. The PAD leadership faces criminal charges, but note how the government is remaining patient, at least from the standpoint of declining to use force to put a quick end to the disruption. Admittedly part of the reason they have done nothing is because the military and the police and various ministries and the King himself all are sharing power and responsibility while jockeying against each other, and no one wants to make a mistake that would lead to unnecessary bloodshed. Doing so could very well set off a chain reaction of violence. Those in power are surely afraid of the backlash that would be the predictable result of "rolling up" the protest - this is a well-industrialized nation where the average person makes about $150-$200 a month while those among the richest 2% own more than 90% of the country's wealth. Thai people are known for their patience and kindness, but every day the papers carry stories of explosive violence, sometimes related to criminal activities, sometimes to political dissension, and almost always to poverty. The worst-case scenarios are that the protests would blow up to the point where the military has to be called in or that the violence would spread to the provinces.

At any rate, Thailand's struggle to evolve their democracy is just beginning. The corruption found in every government agency runs from the bottom up, not from the top down, and there is a long tradition of graft and bribery that is not likely to change simply because the current figurehead is replaced. The military and the monarchy have been intertwined through marriage and blood-relation for hundreds of years, and each depends on the other for legitimacy. But now they are finding out that they must learn how to include "the people," those pesky teeming masses that have elected such undesirable governments.

Looming in the future is the fate of King Bumibon's legacy. Last year he turned 80, and his health has been in decline. As far as kings go, he is a great man and is widely revered by his subjects. When he became king, the monarchy was reduced to the status of puppet to the military. By the sheer force of his charisma, benevolence and concern for the people, he regained the nation's trust and admiration and has re-established the power to influence political and military decisions. Some say he is the only one holding everything together. His son, the heir apparent, is said to be a much-devolved version of the father, and although it is illegal to denigrate any of the royal family, he is the one royal that Thai people are willing to complain about in private. No one wants to think about the next generation coming to power: an ill-respected king of weak character coupled with a strong military could have disastrous consequences for the future of democracy here. With luck, Bumibon will outlive his playboy offspring, but should there be a new king during this current crisis, all bets are off.

Still safe and sound in beautiful Chiang Mai,
Dave