Eating non-stop in Bangkok

Lunch seems endless, it is a triumph for street food and market-places (part three)

see part one and part two

I was impressed by Bangkok, its light, the natural gentleness of the people, the colours and aromas of the street food, which I didn’t touch because four days are too little to change your habits. Gabriele Zanatta says street food is only too oily and sometimes it is seasoned in a way we’re not used to, with very hot spices always around the corner, but there’s nothing to worry about when it comes to hygiene. After all, many open air markets in Italy also charm you on one hand and push you away on the other – it’s the same, in other words. You either trust them in your venture, or it’s best to just look, dream and take picture.

One thing’s for sure: Thai people eat at all hours, from before sunrise to the middle of the night, in small quantities but all the time and these corners specialised in very few things, sometimes only one, such as corn on the cob, can satisfy any need, starting from that of spending as little as possible, nothing when we compare it to what we’re used to spend in Italy for an ordinary sandwich. Of course I don’t want to pretend I know it all. I hate those who arrive in one place in the morning, and by sunset they explain everything as though they’ve lived there for a decade – I still don’t know how far Milan goes. Those are jerks.

Besides, Bangkok is hard to understand because it is huge and very similar. Of course, the riverside, with the banks of the Chao Phraya, with its various facets, between luxury hotels and skyscrapers, dilapidation and barracks, is unmistakable, just like the historic area with the Buddhist temples, but aside from this, the capital of Thailand spreads horizontally and cement is to be found everywhere, like a grey Bermuda grass with dots of colour given by Buddhist altars (and by the scent of incense), by tiny plots of green and the dresses of people. I never quite understand where you are, if you’re a tourist, that is, since any sign is written in a language that is impossible to understand, in the same way as Italian is impossible for them, not being used to articles, to female/male gender, to singular and plural, to tenses and verb declinations.

Everything looks the same as soon as you leave the neighbourhoods that are more peculiar. For instance, I still haven’t understood where the market so full of charm I visited at lunchtime is. You may know that nothing is like in Italy but reality strikes you all the same. And I didn’t even have enough time to go to the boat market, or on the boats. This is how it went: I went from one cooking school to another, the first one (of which I wrote here) faces the road, the second, instead, is on the first floor of a building which turned out to be one of the entrances to the Ying Charoen market on Phaholyothin road, in the Bang Khen district. Two thousand stands, almost all of them with food produce, low ceilings, temperatures around 40°C (at the end of May), rocketing humidity, which is the most annoying part even though the Thai guides, who live or have lived in Italy, say they find our dry heat much more annoying, because it dries your skin. It’s a matter of opinion.

The Ying Charoen market spreads over 15 acres, for around six hectares, it is cleaned top to bottom four times a day but still there are corners where it is hard to be indifferent. This is not a question of dirt, in fact, quite the opposite, but of produce in display, foods that in some cases I wouldn’t buy to prepare them at home. Still, it’s a matter of different cultures, of confidence that some stands seem to inspire more than others. Still when I think of the people who come here from another continent and just like us find some unusual (to him) products in our markets, I guess it’s the same.

Paolo Marchi

  | published on 13-06-2013 in AFFARI DI GOLA DI PAOLO MARCHI