Floyd’s Thai Food. Keith Floyd

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      Thailand is a magical and exotic country formerly known as Siam, with a famed royal family who endure and are adored by the Thais to this day, and I have been very lucky to have travelled north, south, east and west since I first went there in 1984. Thailand was never invaded or colonized by a European power. It is true there were skirmishes with Burma, but in the grand picture they are, today, completely insignificant. More important, though, are the gastronomic invasions that have taken place, which the Thais have welcomed, embraced and fused into their own rich, culinary heritage.

      In Thai cuisine you will find the influences of Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Malaysia and, of course, China. But perhaps the most significant invasion came not from the region but from South America when, in the sixteenth century, Portuguese merchant men introduced to Thailand the signature taste of chillies.

      Chillies and Thai cooking are symbiotic. From the explosively dynamite hot, tiny bird’s eye chillies, right through the gamut of this exquisite vegetable to large peppers, green, yellow and red, chillies are extremely important to Thai cooking, and make vibrant displays in huge wicker baskets all over the country. Whether chopped fresh and popped into dishes or compounded into pastes, they are indispensable. Another vital ingredient is fish sauce, which is used throughout South East Asia instead of salt. Tiny fish, often anchovies, are laid out on the beach in their thousands and allowed to dry before being put into vats and left to ferment; incidentally, the Romans had a similar sauce that was called liquamen.

       Red chilli paste is available ready-made from the markets.

       Juicy, aromatic limes.

       Local honey.

       The Thais just can’t get enough fresh and dried chillies.

       Bowls of fermented fish at Klong Toey Market.

      The explosive tastes of Thai food are also enhanced by the citric and sour flavours provided by lime juice, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves and tamarind, and are then softened with either coconut water or coconut milk and the indispensable masses of fresh basil, mint and coriander – just loosely ripped up and chucked onto the top of any dish, they give a crunchy freshness and combat the fiery tastes.

      In the north and north-west of Thailand, on the Burmese border, in the lush forests and jungles of places like Mae Hong Son and Chiang Mai, where wonderful rivers flow and working elephants bathe, you will find fiercely hot curries and salads. Even in the twenty-first century, the lore of the hunter-gatherer is reflected in the leaves and vegetables that are used for these salads – very often served with a warm dressing of chillies, fish sauce, palm sugar and lime juice – and in the very distinctive cooking of this region. Obviously, Bangkok, an international city, will cook, display and sell the delights of the whole country and, of course, the dreaded McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and all the other appalling effects of American gastronomic imperialism.

      As you progress south towards Malaysia, you will, as you do in Kerala in southern India, enter the world and the land of the coconut – so important in the rich, creamy, spicy, subtle, fragrant curries and the delicate, but deliciously sweet puddings.

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