Complete Thai Food Encyclopedia

[Khun Bob]

Does anyone know if there is a book - in english or thai - that just lists all the different thai food that can be found in all the parts of thailand ?

I'm not so interested in recipes - but would just like to know what dishes there are, so that when i go to a food vendor I can ask for food i have never tried before and see what it is like. Ideally the book would give the ingrediants and explain what kind of taste the dish/food has.

I know there is an awful lot of food in Thailand and would just love to try some food i have never eaten whist I am here. I would like to know food for all the different provinces in thailand - north, south, east, west and north east...

If anyone can give some recommendations on book titles would be appreciated..

Cheers

[Khun Bob]

Talked to a few Thais who know quite a bit about food, but havent studied formally and apparently there are some books that go into detail on a particular region in thailand's food

I dont know what the titles are will be checking out a few book shops to see what they have - apparently the books are quite big, have pictures, ingredients and preparation instructions - all in thai of course...

Any one know of good titles, please comment here..

[Khun Bob]

Seems this is not a particularly interesting topic - or has this all been covered before.

Well went along to the local bookstore and there is 1 publisher that has a very good format for thai food books.

They have books on halal food, one dish food, isann food, som tam (with english too!), tom yam, chinese food, and others which i found harder to get a translation for.

The books are in the price range 165 to 495 baht and seem to be a bit expensive but do look very well presented - more so than some other books that had fewer photos and even only black and white photos.

The publisher is saendayt..

[Khutan]

K. Bob, I find this interesting, please keep posting on this topic.

[Khun Bob]

K. Bob, I find this interesting, please keep posting on this topic.

I was hoping someone more knowlegable than me would say something - basically if no one says anything i'm going to spend a couple of thousand baht on books and have to improve my thai reading skills - still maybe this is a good way to do it.

Cheers

PS Hope your not taking the mick - this is the thai food forum after all and i am surprised this subject hasnt been covered before - a search on the net comes up with a few recipes and a few downloadable pdf books which are really to sell the companies products - some of them are quite funny - ie buy our jar of naam yaa baa and heat then eat...

[Khun Bob]

saen dayt i have just been informed means bright sun - which just happens to be their logo - off to the book shops tomorrow so may come back with a few good titles...

Some of the som tams I saw today i have never seen before i would really like to try eg som o - som tam made with oranges (som o) - had a mango som tam before in khon kaen and it was fantastic..

[Khun Bob]

Well spent nearly 2000baht on thai food books yesterday and it seems that sangdad are the tops in this area, their website has details on nearly 300 books :

http://www.sangdad.com/html/book_catalogue.php

All the books i bought are in thai. I have done this as i want to improve my thai reading and comprehension aswell. However the sangdad paublisher also does books in english and seems to hike the price up aswell (no surprise there...)

I have 1 book by another publisher and will post more details on that but their format is very similar to sangdad. The books i have do assume that you have some experience of cooking and explain details at the beginning about the ingrediatent that are used for the theme of the book. All the books have a theme and have excellent food presentation and photography.

Si I have come to the conclusion now that there is no one single book that covers everything as there is simply so much thai food.

PS dont read these books when you are hungry

PPS made a massive mistake today ordering a massaman curry - asked for a mammasan curry - whoops - still it was outstanding never the less - the mall shop produces some excellent food but the food court is a let down - still you buy food cheaper in the shop and then eat in the food court - no problem..

Will get some more details about the books and photos uploaded soon.

[donnieB81]

you also can check that website out :

http://www.thaitable.com

Dont think you need a teacher to cook thai food. that's not "coq au vin"

[Khun Bob]

The local 7-11 is doing a 10% off sale on the small sangdad books - so have got a few more books. This is better that book varieties 5% off card which is good for a few years yet...

[Buckwheat]

Try this link...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/000255029...ce&n=283155

It has the common food as well as the recipes broken down by region.