nam prik maeng daa
Nam prik maeng daa is Thai for cockroach chili sauce. I know this from experience.
I went to a market the other day just to poke around. I am not very good at putting myself into situations where I have to speak Thai. However, I can read that script although I usually don't know the meaning of the words. So I decided to walk up to a food cart, pick something off the menu and order it, come what may.
I went to a guy making nam prik, which is chili sauce ground up with a wooden mortar and pestle. I had eaten several nam priks before, including one with pork and another that you dipped fish into. This was a good place for me if I was feeling reckless with my Thai, because the guy has to constantly check in with the customer about what he's grinding up- more chilis? fish sauce? I would have to speak Thai back to him or I wouldn't get my food.
So I read "nam prik maeng daa" off the menu and they guy looked a little surprised. But I wasn't going to waver. So he leans over his cart of ingredients to a stack of dried fish. He lifts them up and underneath there is a pile of steamed cockroaches. And these are big boys, like one filled the palm of his hand. He takes one and splits it open. Inside the body is some black lozenge thing, maybe its heart or stomach apparatus. He holds this to my nose and asks me if this is really what I want. It has the funkiest odor, like a turpentine or fermented dish detergent. I've already committed myself to this though, so I say of course, yeah sure.
He proceeds to shred the bug body in his hands and toss it in the mortar along with some rotting fish carcas floating in brown liquid, and like 10 pickled chilis. The result is a greenish-black sludge that he puts in a little plastic bag. I tried to eat it later in the day, but the chilis were too much for me. But even though there were enough chilis to knock me out, that pungent cockroach flavor managed to get caught in my mouth. I was tasting it for the rest of the day, like I'd rinsed with wood stain or something.
I just read in the New York Times that according to Michael Pollan, Americans are relying on a diet that is made from fewer and fewer species, much to the detriment of our health. I would like to see him come here and flesh out his diet with some insect friends. In Thai that would be, "hiu ma-laeng," or "I'm hungry for insects." He could buy maggots fried in soy sauce on the street, or ants in chicken soup. Or maybe he wants some nam prik maeng daa?
I went to a market the other day just to poke around. I am not very good at putting myself into situations where I have to speak Thai. However, I can read that script although I usually don't know the meaning of the words. So I decided to walk up to a food cart, pick something off the menu and order it, come what may.
I went to a guy making nam prik, which is chili sauce ground up with a wooden mortar and pestle. I had eaten several nam priks before, including one with pork and another that you dipped fish into. This was a good place for me if I was feeling reckless with my Thai, because the guy has to constantly check in with the customer about what he's grinding up- more chilis? fish sauce? I would have to speak Thai back to him or I wouldn't get my food.
So I read "nam prik maeng daa" off the menu and they guy looked a little surprised. But I wasn't going to waver. So he leans over his cart of ingredients to a stack of dried fish. He lifts them up and underneath there is a pile of steamed cockroaches. And these are big boys, like one filled the palm of his hand. He takes one and splits it open. Inside the body is some black lozenge thing, maybe its heart or stomach apparatus. He holds this to my nose and asks me if this is really what I want. It has the funkiest odor, like a turpentine or fermented dish detergent. I've already committed myself to this though, so I say of course, yeah sure.
He proceeds to shred the bug body in his hands and toss it in the mortar along with some rotting fish carcas floating in brown liquid, and like 10 pickled chilis. The result is a greenish-black sludge that he puts in a little plastic bag. I tried to eat it later in the day, but the chilis were too much for me. But even though there were enough chilis to knock me out, that pungent cockroach flavor managed to get caught in my mouth. I was tasting it for the rest of the day, like I'd rinsed with wood stain or something.
I just read in the New York Times that according to Michael Pollan, Americans are relying on a diet that is made from fewer and fewer species, much to the detriment of our health. I would like to see him come here and flesh out his diet with some insect friends. In Thai that would be, "hiu ma-laeng," or "I'm hungry for insects." He could buy maggots fried in soy sauce on the street, or ants in chicken soup. Or maybe he wants some nam prik maeng daa?
posted by DMF at 5:34 PM
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