Researching Isan food

[PMNL]

The sticky rice in bamboo ( kow laam) is great. I like the purple rice better. My wife still likes the ant eggs. First thing she gets when in country ( half time in Dallas TX and half in Warin).

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Purple because of the beans in it.

Actually there are purple and red brown rice. Natural color and available at certain area.

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[NeverSure]

I spent Songkran at my girlfriends mums house in Wangsaphung, Loei. The food was great, but fairly basic for the first day (bamboo curry, grilled snakehead fish, lots of omlettes, lots of sticky rice and spicy sauce with everything). Then her aunt turned up with a big bag of ant larvae and flying ants..... Needless to say, she proceeded to generously pile said ants into every meal for the rest of my four day stay, thus spoiling every meal! (In my opinion). Anyway, I was told the ants are considered quite a delicacy by her family at least. You don't often see things like this on the menu in most Thai cities and towns. I think it would be a good idea to try to get to some rural Isaan villages to get more of an authentic viewpoint for your research.

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Correct you only get to sample peasant food with said peasants.

Hmmm, I wouldn't call them peasants at all.

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I decided a long time ago that the best food out there was the local peasant food. By that I mean what the local people can grow, catch, hunt themselves.

Mexican food as we know it, same for Chinese, in the US, New Orleans has its own cuisine based on the swamps and climate, Thai restaurants even in the West... Mmmm breaded catfish and hushpuppies from the deep south US.,,,

There is a Thai, Chinese, and Mexican restaurant on every other corner in some Western places, and all serving the basic peasant food.

I say we're discussing peasant food, and it's 'almost' all good.

[Issangeorge]

Hmmm, I wouldn't call them peasants at all.

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You wouldn't but their dietary intake leads me to think otherwise,I mean who in this day and age eats ants and their eggs,only normally those who have very little,it's then described as a delicacy,c'mon .

Been there got the T shirt,now I realise what a fool I was for thinking how exciting this Thai peasantry way of life was now I steer well clear of the jungle food mate.

Ant Larvae, is perhaps the tastiest insect dish there is. Stoneyboy, just because you reject new tastes and cultures don't look down on others who don't. I mean who in this day and age rejects new things?

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[siampolee]

i have eaten all sorts here in Surin ( Amphur Sangkha ) and I am not dead yet. We westerners look at some of the food eaten locally and feel nauseated, the same goes for the locals when they see some of our western food.

I've eaten things that I have no idea what they may have been when alive or if they had actually been alive, no problems to me, the old digestive system has coped.

Sometimes a few quick runs to the bathroom, however eventually all is settled happiness is a dry fart.

I recall from many a year back survival courses in the military when we were taught how to live off of the land so perhaps those experiences have stood me in good stead.

Likewise as a lad in the 1950's in England we used to have an old Romany couple arrive on our farm around three times a year, they also how to live off of the land as did our gamekeepers grandfather did too they all taught me and fed me from that which they had caught in the wild. I also survived some 12 + years of school dinners too.

Now I'm 68 and in first class health, none of that safe food practice in my youth, eat it or go without was the rule.

So, sample whats on offer and if it's to your liking eat it, if not smile nicely and pass to the next delicate morsel