The Secret (Thai) Garden
I see a massive tree towering in front of me with delicate, bright green leaves and kiwi colored pods hanging from it. I am blown away at how tall it is and how small I am. When I’m told it is a tamarind tree, I smile and vaguely recollect a similar tree from my childhood in India. I am embarrassed that I forgot tamarind grows on trees. The overwhelming feeling, however, is bliss.
It is a warm, sunny late afternoon and I have arrived for a Thai cooking class in Chiang Mai. The fragrant smell of plumerias greets us and I am welcomed with a refreshing butterfly pea drink. Perhaps you have tasted it too? The one where you squeeze lime into the drink and it turns from topaz to purple. I had never experienced this and it was as though nature was unfolding a culinary magic trick in front of me. Afterwards and unbeknownst to me, the class starts in the chef’s garden. The chef bought a piece of land, built his house on the property and also converted a large portion of it into a garden.
The chef is a gentle soul and he takes me on a walking tour of the garden and there are delightful surprises at every turn. My first impulse was that I wanted to take my shoes off and feel the bare earth under my feet. That’s how gorgeous this tropical garden was. We walk through neatly arranged rows of Thai herbs/chilis and their colorful vibrancy tells me good things are in store. We turn a corner and there’s a papaya tree. One looks ripened (yellow on the outside) so he plucks, skins, and cuts a small piece with his pocket knife for me to try. The bright orange-red color is so pretty. It is firm yet soft and the sweet papaya melts in my mouth on the hot day. It cannot get any fresher than this! As I am chewing the papaya, the quiet and stillness of that moment dawn on me. I hear nothing other than the occasional bird tweeting. This is tranquility defined.
When we keep walking, I’m pretty stunned to see a small rectangular patch of rice stalks! So far it has felt like a tropical garden paradise, lush with green produce, so the crowded kernels of beige rice certainly stand out a little. We continue walking and the smell of citrus draws us to the Thai lime trees. These gorgeous bumpy-rinded limes are also known as Markut limes or kaffir limes. Tom yum soup calls for Thai lime leaves. Some are budding and chef puts one in my hand that is the size of a pea. I doubt he knows my love of tiny things and I can’t help but take a picture of it resting on my ginormous looking hand. Around the bend, we arrive at the towering tamarind tree and he explains that every part of the tree is used: from the seeds to the bark to the leaves. The commonly used ingredient for cooking comes from the ripe brownish pod which looks like 6 inch oversized pea pods with the pulp coating the seeds. Tamarind happens to be one of my favorite sour flavors and I am mesmerized by his explanation. I much prefer the flavor of tamarind to other souring agents such as vinegar. I find it’s a somewhat softened sour flavor, less stringent and piercing. It is also a familiar flavor because it is a staple ingredient in signature Mangalorean dishes such as fish curry.
As I stand in front of the tamarind tree, I am smiling ear to ear because I love connecting the dots and seeing where my food comes from. Collecting vivid imagery of ingredients is a favorite for my food memory bank (and I hope to share more of these with you on this site!)
We make our way to the outdoor veranda for the cooking lesson. You know what, more on that another time. I want to linger a bit longer in the sensory loaded walk through the secret Thai garden of my dreams!
