?Indian? (Punjabi) and (Indian)-Chinese are supposed to be the most and second-most popular cuisines in the country when it comes to restaurants. But do a quick survey for the third slot and you are likely to find both Italian and Thai vying for top honours. Despite originating in different continents, both share certain sensibilities?they are simpler cuisines based on fresh ingredients and flavouring herbs rather than complicated cooking methods and philosophy. And that?s what has undoubtedly made them so accessible and popular all over the world and not just in India.
Unfortunately, this catering to a mass palate has led both the cuisines to be so democratised as to be considered ?cheap? food, suitable for casual takeaways (pizza, after all, is the universal take-away favourite) or quick bites rather than gourmet meals. In India, of course, the situation vis-?-vis these cuisines is a little different from how they are commonly perceived in the West. Here, they came to us primarily through the five-star route and thus suffer from no inferiority of image complex. And yet it is interesting to see how food snobs the world over are revving up these simple ?mass? cuisines into works of ?gourmet art?.
Artisnal pizzas, basement ?caves? set up by foodie snobs for their homemade cheeses, personally cured prosicuttos (and dare you call it just ham), even smoke-filled ravioli have today got inextricably linked with Italian food, so that we are all suitably wowed and dare not call it ?simple? food any longer. The image of Italian food in the dinning capitals of the world has consequently got a huge image makeover. But what about Thai food? Is it forever destined to remain confined to the inelegant curry bowl? Or, like the country itself that has moved away from being just a backpacker destination of choice to one full of the most luxurious spas and hotels in Asia, is Thai food on a reinvention course?
Perched on a high cliff overlooking a thousand lights and the tranquil Lamai bay in Samui, Thailand?s most beautiful island, I discover the antithesis of ?cheap? Thai: contemporary Thai cuisine is increasingly being repositioned as elegant, Michelin Star-worthy fare. In fact, it is being branded ?Thai culinary art? by upmarket chefs and restaurants in that country. I got a taste of it at the new and ultra luxe Banyan Tree resort in Samui recently. Saffron is the villas-only resort?s Thai speciality restaurant situated high up on a hill; candle-lit in the evenings with a three-member live band singing old 1960s style rock and country numbers. It is also one of the most romantic places to dine out on the island. And it specialises in ?contemporary? Thai ? paired, of course, with the wine of your choice.
Tiny bowls of beautiful-looking raw papaya salad are presented to us alongside stylish bowls of the traditional Tom Yum soup?except that it may contain bits of salmon and scallops. There are no overflowing curry bowls, just shallow, artistically decorated smatterings to go with five different kinds of rice brought out on a trolley. And the dessert, when it comes, is a Thai-style cr?me brulee?with coconut; individually plattered.
Thai culinary art, as it is called and practised at a growing number of upscale restaurants in the country, is nothing but increasingly available foreign ingredients married to Thai flavours, but cooked in such a way that the ?Thainess? of the food is retained. One of the dishes that has gained popularity in recent times is kaeng phet ped yaang, a Thai-style red ?curry? with roasted duck as one of the main ingredients. Now, roast duck is not an indigenous Thai dish?it is Chinese, as all lovers of Peking duck will acknowledge. Yet, in snobby Bangkok establishments it becomes a ?culinary art? main course.
Similarly, elsewhere, there can be oysters on half shelves, topped with a quintessential Thai salad ? arranged beautifully, of course. Then again, you could have sushi with Thai ingredients in Bangkok restaurants not to mention the likes of ?baby back ribs with bitter chocolate and Thai spices?, a dish created by one of the best known Thai chefs, Pongtawat ?Ian? Chalermkittichai, who has opened restaurants around the world, including Kittichai in Manhattan and has a televised cooking show in Thailand.
But while you can revel in this new sense of ?direction? that traditional Thai cooking seems to be getting?much like ?contemporarised? Indian food that found a beginning in London and New York with western main ingredients married to Indian spices and cooking methods (a la salmon tikka, this type of cuisine?s most famous progeny), in Thailand itself, there are a couple of problems this kind of kitchen art is contending with. For one, to ask local people to pay gourmet prices for this fare?when they can have authentic and prized family recipes at home?is a challenge. (In fact, this is a situation that stares our own restaurateurs in the face: how to market Indian food in India and command high prices for it?) But more importantly, many Thais, who are as proud of their cuisine (recipes are apparently zealously guarded by families though ?funeral books? publish some of these upon a person?s death) as we in India are, are frankly irritated at what they see as an intrusion into their traditional space.
While in Samui, I confess to being completely bowled over as much by this new Thai experience at Saffron as by the hawkers? stalls at the quintessential ?walking streets? that spring up all over the island on weekends (with shopping, food and street musical performances making up a carnival-like experience), controversy seemed to have been brewing not so far away. According to reports that I read about, an Australian chef, David Thompson, has been angering the otherwise affable people of the country. Nahm (the first Thai restaurant to be awarded a Michelin Star; in London) chef Thompson has recently set shop in Bangkok and has rather immodestly declared that he is there to ?revive? Thai food?unmindful of outrage from people who are questioning a non-Thai?s ability to teach them their own food!
The kind of culinary art that Thompson serves up, however, is as far removed from your regular pad thai and glass noodle salad as the proverbial chalk from cheese: For instance, there are tapas-style appetisers with pomelo, grilled prawns, coconut and peanuts, dressed in a tamarind sauce and innovations such as durian (frankly, not anyone?s favourite fruit, at least in India) rice! At about $50 per person for a set menu, this is snobbish Thai food.
Next time you are traveling, you can sample some of this and make up your own mind as to its merits. Experimentation never did any harm, if handled right, would be my own take on the cuisine. And just like in India, where ?contemporary? and traditional Indian cuisine(s) can coexist peacefully, so can they in Thailand. Who knows this is cuisine may wash up our shores too. As I dig into some Bengali-Thai spread at the home of a friendly couple (he is a Bengali, she a Thai, who cooks hilsa the Thai way!), that?s a thought that crosses my mind often.
?The writer is a food critic