Preparation Methods Eating a Thai Meal

Thai food is most often steamed, quickly stir-fried, or grilled, and such cooking methods, plus the use of fresh ingredients, make it unusually healthy. For this reason it is being widely adapted for use in spas, especially the many new ones that have opened in Thailand over the past few years. At the famous Oriental Hotel Spa, for example, a wide range of dishes have been developed that are both delicious as well as low in calories and cholesterol. The menu includes not only salads, red chicken curry, and vegetable fired rice but also invigorating health drinks concocted with fresh local fruits like papaya, pomelo, mango, guava and tangerine as well as assorted herbal teas made from lemon grass, galanga and basil. These health drinks are also offered at other well-know spas like Chiva Som in Hua Hin and The Banyan Tree in Phuket.

While the cooking process tends to be relatively brief, with a minimum of complications, preparation of some dishes many require considerable time and effort. Generally this involves peeling and chopping the various ingredients as well as blending them with a mortar and pestle. In more elaborate dishes, particulaly those known as royal or palace-style, fruits and raw vegetables are skillfully carved into beautiful shapes that amounts to an art in itself, adding to the aesthetic appeal of the presentation.

Almost always, eating Thai style is a social affair that involves a group of people sitting around a table or, in rural areas, on the floor. A typical meal will be comprised of a number of dishes, either in the form of soups or served in bite-sized pieces, and each diner will have only a fork and a spoon. In fact, a century or so age no cutlery apart from serving utensils was used at traditional meals. The rice, if gltinous was pressed into small balls with the fingers and dipped into the other dishes; ordinary rice was spooned on to individual dishes with utensils make of wood or coconut and then eaten with fingers. European spons and forks appeared during the 19th century, at first among royalty and later taken up by the general population; the custom today is to eat with a dessert-sized spoon, using the fork mainly to move food around on the plate. A Chinese-style ceramic spoon may be provided if there is a soup, in which case each guest will have a small bowl as well as a plate, and chopsticks are used when Chinese-style noodles are included on the menu.