Ganesh and the gourmets

What would Lord Ganesh eat on his birthday? Okay, it’s not a question that comes up much, but Bangkok’s Blue Elephant restaurant has chosen a menu for the elephant-headed Hindu god to whom Thais often appeal to clear their paths to success.
His birthday is on September 1, and Thais in the media and the arts made offerings that day at Hindu temples and even the Mandarin Oriental. The celebration continues, however.
Rich India and Radio Thailand, led by Ganesh devotee and TV anchorman Varin Sachdev, are teaming up with chef Nooror Somany Steppe of the Blue Elephant for the “BollyCruise on the River of Kings” on November 12. It’s also a fund-raiser for the Asian Elephant Foundation of Thailand.
It’s a three-hour, Bollywood-inspired dining cruise along the Chao Phraya River aboard the Royal Thai Navy cruiser Angsana.
Nooror will prepare dishes purported to be favourites of Ganesh – and elephants in general – derived from classic Thai recipes. She’ll be using, among many other ingredients, coconuts, sugar cane and bananas from His Majesty the King’s Doi Kham Project for the five-course feast.
The news media, as usual, got a preview taste, and were pleased to be munching on not just bananas but sophisticated dishes that can’t be found even at the luxury restaurants.
One starter was foie gras with black-pepper sauce and mulberry compote – goose liver from Landes in France seasoned with Thai herbs, which is not normally an ideal match but here became innovative and exciting.
A giant freshwater-prawn salad with organic herbs and avocado from the Royal Project came bite-size in crunchy layers.
The papaya in the spicy papaya salad with corn and trout was hand-grated and then pounded in an earthen mortar with palm sugar, underlying its authenticity.
Add to that fish sauce, Chiang Rai garlic and organic bird’s-eye chillies and lime juice and you’ve got the real thing, but there’s more – grilled trout, corn with long beans and Pandanus sticky rice, pleasing to the eye as well as the palate.
A Doi Kham eggplant salad involved grilled scallops with a hint of truffle oil and herbal spiciness. Pumpkin soup with black-truffle oil came in the tender-cooked pumpkin. 
The main course combined fried curries, stew and rice.
Nooror utilised sturgeon from the Royal Project in her red curry, rounded out with young banana, kaffir lime leaves and sweet basil. Sungyod Benjarong rice with lotus seeds and black sesame seeds was served wrapped in a banana leaf.
Stir-fried young French peas partnered with prawns, garlic and oyster sauce. Duck was stewed with cane juice that transformed its flavour.
Nooror pampered the press further with a trio of desserts – Cr