FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

The sweet taste of tradition

The sweet taste of tradition

Influences from India, Persia, Mesopotamia and China have all contributed to the delicacy of Thai desserts

FLORAL FRAGRANCES mingled with the sweet scent of coconut and the perfumed smoke from scented candles bring to mind the relaxing ambience of a spa. At the Royal Traditional Thai Crafts School for Women, however, the massage tables are replaced by kitchen counters, the quiet by the clatter of knives and the only things pummelled are not human bodies but the ingredients that go into the making of khanom Thai, or Thai desserts and snacks.
Influenced by China, India and the religions of the region – Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism – Thai desserts are the fruits of collective wisdom. 
“The basic ingredients of traditional Thai desserts are rice flour, coconut milk and sugar. Khanom tom, a glutinous coconut ball made from glutinous rice flour, grated coconut, and sugar is the oldest Thai dessert recorded in Buddhist literature and is mentioned in the “Tri Bhumi Phra Ruang” from the Sukhothai period,” traditional Thai food expert ML Darunee Jakraphan of the Royal school explains during a discussion on desserts in cultural diversity hosted by Chulalongkorn University. 
“Khanom Thai get their sweetness from palm sugar or sugarcane and their fragrance from coconut milk and scented candles. The beautiful shapes and patterns can be credited to the creativity of the ladies of the house. We get colours from flowers and plants around our homes. Purple comes from butterfly pea flower juice mixed with lime juice, blue from the butterfly pea flower, yellow from night jasmine flower and green from pandan leaves.
“Thai women of the past adopted dessert recipes from other countries then adapted them to suit our palate. Records of khanom bueang date back to the Ayutthaya period. A few months ago I demonstrated khanom krok to visitors from Laos and Myanmar and they were delighted to discover they had had the same kinds of dessert in their countries.”
Similar in appearance but different in taste and ingredients, khanom krok or Thai rice pancakes with coconut milk are known as mont lin ma yar in Myanmar, khao nom kok in Laos and num krok in Cambodia. 
“The Ayutthaya period was really important for the Thai dessert as Thao Thong Kip Ma or Maria Guyomar de Pina, a lady of Japanese, Portuguese and Bengali origins, introduced desserts influenced by Portuguese cuisine to the court. She created foi thong, thong yip and tong yot using egg yolk as the main ingredient as well as the colourful a-lua.” 
Sweets were offered to the gods in various ancient civilisations including Mesopotamia, India and China. In the Hindu religion, Indian sweets are offered to gods in temples and later distributed to others to consume as a prasadam, literally “a gracious gift”, in the belief that those making the offering will be blessed by the deity. 
“In the Indian culture sweets are gifts. When you are happy, you give sweets to others so that everybody else will be happy too. Sweets are generally presented during festive occasions and ceremonies to signify good luck, happiness and prosperity,” says Kittipong Boonkerd, an expert in Pali and Sanskrit and a lecturer at the university’s Department of Eastern Languages.
“Traditionally Thais don’t eat sweets at the end of a meal. Thai desserts are always used in festivals and to mark important events like New Year, weddings or religious rituals. We use sweets with good names like foi thong to bless the bride and groom as its golden thread represents long-lasting love,” Darunee explains. 
“The main ingredients in Indian desserts are chickpea flour, milk, coconut sugar and ghee (clarified butter). The Hindu deity Ganesha is often shown carrying a bowl of sweets, called a modaka which means joy. That’s why devotees offer modaka and small sweet balls called laddus to Ganesha. 
“Another Indian sweet to which Thais relate is kheer or payas, a sweet rice pudding made from milk, sugar and rice. We believe that kheer is mathu-payas, the rice pudding that Suchada, a housewife from a wealthy family, offered Lord Buddha before he achieved his enlightenment.”
Assistant Professor Dr Julispong Chularatana from the university’s arts faculty notes that Hindu and Muslim desserts share main similar traits, explaining that Persia invaded India and left behind a cultural trail that extended to cuisine. 
First prepared in medieval India, gulab jamun was derived from a fritter that Persian-speaking invaders brought to India. The word gulab is derived from the Persian words gol (flower) and ab (water), referring to the rose water-scented syrup. Jamun or jaman is the Hindi-Urdu word for an Indian fruit with a similar size and shape.
“Rose water, with its distinctive flavour and scent, is an important ingredient in Persian sweets. Rose water represents purification so adding it to food and dessert is meant to purify the people who eat it,” Julispong says.
“On the day of Ashura, the tenth day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar, we eat ashura which is also known as Nu’s pudding or Noah’s Pudding. It is believed that Noah made this pudding when the food supplies started diminishing after several days on the arc. He put the little bits of everything that was left into a pot and cooked them together to make ashura.”
Setthapong Jongsanguan, a scholar of Chinese Buddhism, adds that Chinese sweets in Thailand have been enjoyed for centuries with many of them adapted to pander to the Thai palate.
“Thais made Chinese sweets more appealing to our taste. Look at yue bing or moon cake. Thailand is the only place to have durian moon cake,” he says.
“Each Chinese festival comes with its own sweet. Nian gao or khanom keng, glutinous rice cake, is made for the New Year. Thais add the Thai sweet khanom tien, a stuffed, pyramid shaped glutinous rice cake, in their offerings to Chinese deities.
“In Chinese culture, sweet means happiness while sugar means wealth. The most common Chinese sweet is tangyuan, glutinous rice ball in syrup, and is eaten to celebrate all important events in life from birth to death.”
Tangyuan can be filled with sesame, peanuts or sweet bean. Filled or unfilled tangyuan are traditionally eaten during the Lantern Festival on the last day of the Chinese New Year celebration. The round shape of the balls, and the round bowls in which they are served represent family togetherness and good luck. 
“In the old days, we had space to grow various kinds of fruits, plants, flowers and trees in our garden so we had plenty of fruits to eat all year round. Once the bananas bore fruit, we could not eat them all at once so we would turn them into desserts. We would steam, sun-dry or sugar-coat them so we would have fruits to eat all year,” Darunee says. 
“The changing landscape and lifestyle play important roles in passing on knowledge about Thai cuisine. Now most of us live in smaller houses with tiny plots of land or in condos. It’s quite hard to make dessert at home.
“And while children used to be taught by their mothers to make Thai desserts, the kids today don’t even eat them let alone want to learn how to make one,” she laments.
The delicious aromas fade as we leave the hall and the sound of women chatting while grating fresh coconut slowly dies out. The bonds between different cultures and beliefs that have been intertwined harmoniously for centuries are also weakening, their strands replaced by fast foods and Western pastries.
Modern life, it seems, has sounded the death knell for Thai tradition. 
 
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