I primarily like participating in food when I travel. If Thailand didn't have rockin' food I don't think I'd be much for visiting it, and I wonder just how much Los Angeles' food keeps me here. After all, we have Thaitown, Koreatown, Little Tokyo, Tokyotown, Monterrey Park, Chinatown, Little Saigon... a veritable universe of some of the best eats in the world.
When it comes to national cuisines, I always feel a twinge of guilt when communing with my French friends (I know I should tap it out but other issues appear more pressing). Anyway, the guilt stems from feeling that I should be on the French food bandwagon as much as the French, if that's possible. It seems much of the world, and certainly the Chinese have bought into the French food mystique, but I just don't know what's wrong with me. Can anything really top the spicy fish soups of Thailand? DISCLOSURE: I know a French woman and she is perhaps the best cook I've ever known, though I quake imagining the umbrage my New York crew would take with such an admission.
Let's catch our breaths, shall we?
There are different things that I like about different places' food, but I'm not eating out much less lately. Sure, expense matters but when it comes down to it quality matters more, and it's rare that a restaurant can do better than I with simple fresh ingredients. When I came back from Thailand, I realized how horribly dead my diet was. I was eating too much frozen, packaged stuff. There's a certain convenience to such stuff, but it leaves an unsatisfied feeling that makes me eat more when it is not quantity my body craves but quality.
There is an energetic zing to the restaurant food of Thailand. Thai food culture is partly interesting because people by and large do not prepare food themselves. Perhaps it has to do with the complexity of making the sauces and curries, but in any case, unless one is looking to roll in a fancy restaurant, prepared food is cheap, delicious, and fresh.
Freshness is noticeable when you get the opportunity to eat primarily locally grown food. Unless you live in California that opportunity isn't happening much and probably not in proportions necessary to make any difference health-wise. That's what's great about being in places like Thailand and China, getting the right proportions is easy and inexpensive. I understand that until very recently things were like that in France as well.
I regularly procure my vegetables from Hmong. They're the only ones who grow all the fabulous greens eaten in China. Besides the Hmong table, there aren't many Asian farmers to speak of, though there are a few Japanese who sell what everybody else sells: spinach, squash, avocados. There is, however, one Japanese couple that hock a delectable variety of concord-type grape, called Kyoho (the wiki translation here might be a little off. The second character 峰 means mountain peak not just mountain), which becomes available in mid-September.
Chinese of China are avowed meat eaters, but they know more than a thing or two about eating greens. I don't mean beans and rice, corn or potatoes, limas or beets, or even cabbage. I mean real live greens: bok choi, hom choi (Cantonese), gai lan (Cantonese), collards, broccoli, turnip, gai bai sen (Viet), chard and spinich. Prices have gone up a little less than 25% from recent robust action in the oil futures, but still the quality and prices are much more competitive than what you'll find in grocery stores. This is quite different from the farmer's markets in the DC area, where you'll pay pretty pennies or in Dallas, which doesn't have much variety.
One of the things I came to appreciate in China for the first time was dinner parties. Back in the 90s when Beijingers were still riding bicycles, we always found ways to gather for excellent food and stories. Next to locality, spices are the most important part of a dish, especially when you want to wow guests with something they haven't tried before. Sure, often plain greens are just what the doctor ordered. Sometimes a little garlic is in order. Other times, it's really a matter of going for the artistic gusto. That's when I like to get my boy Dhiraj's spices to vaingloriously create "my own" dish.
Contrary to my unorthodox nature, I've done no experimenting with the "Gobi" pack because the curry with cauliflower (or broccoli) is so dynamite that I know there's no improving upon perfection. The blend has citrusy high notes that I have never experienced with any Indian cuisine, yet it's dynamically balanced by roasted cumin. Friends who've had a change to try it out, always ask me about it. Among the other blends, I find the shrimp pack highly conducive to experimentation. The other day, I stir-fried some broccoli, adding the Goa Shrimp pack with udon, shoyu, ginger, and a little fish. Yowzaa!!
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