When you are ready, the rock and roll of Thai food awaits you

Raw Beef Salad in Chiang Mai - No Stranger than Eating Beef Tartare in France is it?

I often teach group Thai cooking classes to students who might be from six different countries.  The goal of the class is for each student to be able to return home, buy the  Thai ingredients they need and make a meal for their friends and families.  Some ingredients used in Thai cooking might not be easily purchased outside of Thailand and the breadth of Thai cooking could include variations on many hundreds of different dishes.  I necessarily have had to narrow down the menu to those dishes that a chef making food abroad could reasonably recreate at home, sort of the greatest hits of Thai cooking.  These delicious dishes might include Massaman Chicken Curry, Bananas in Coconut Milk dessert, Hot & Sour Shrimp Soup, Chicken with Cashew Nuts or Stirfried Vegetables with Oyster Sauce - all classics.

As a contrast to the greatest hits of Thai food, here are some photos and descriptions of wonderful but less commonly seen Thai dishes.

Although somewhat unorthodox and even dangerous sounding to a Western palate used to cheese and bread, these sometimes uncommon ingredients make traditional Thai food like rock and roll versus the elevator music of beans on toast - surrender yourself to the beat and feeling and dance with the flavors.

I invite all readers to travel with me – the adventure into the unfamiliar is worth it.

Roasted Red Ant Eggs for breakfast in Northeastern Thailand - jungle caviar, right? No stranger than eating fish eggs as caviar, right?

Salted Duck Eggs from Suratthani - preserved by brining in salt and then entombed with mud and ash (only the salted egg inside is eaten) but these look like dinosaur eggs,don't they?

Bugs in Chiang Mai

A typical streetside Thai restaurant with something for everyone