There is the housewife's routine, the fast food factory, the restaurant drudgery, industrialised catering, ridiculous 3-star chefs and then there is Cooking Meditation. This may end up being quite refined but starts off with the humble garden barbecue; food cooked on the spot and amidst everybody and everything, simple and delicious. It's the gathering around the hearth of bygone times for warmth, food and companionship. Has anything changed?
To cook means to expose raw ingredients to heat with the help of cooking utensils and thus turning them into edible food. You are all in one
dreamer creator chief chef magician alchemist
technician mechanic chemist biologist
handyman and dishwasher.
There are a few simple ways to get the job done, and the market delights with foodstuff of different
textures types origins colours character
all available at no great expense. It's no mystery, either. Everybody around you is using some or more of these with lesser or greater success, out of necessity or for no other reason than indulging in pleasure.
As an introduction for you to get started with ease I shall provide a simple guide to tools and techniques, a general description of ingredients and some ideas of how, when and in what combination you might use these. Be patient, it's all here.
'Tasty and healthy, light and fresh, easy and fun' should be challenge and motivation enough for you to give it a try. And when 'the spirit catches you' resulting in your
brain, mind, soul and heart nose, ears and eyes
wrists and fingertips palate and tongue
eventually becoming ONE with the products in your hands, you have reached a very advanced state of contemplation. Total concentration - the mind is flying, soaring. Creation! Others may meditate cramping their muscles; your meditation is cooking, simple and fun.
Actually the whole process starts with a flash of inspiration out of nowhere, an article, a photo or whatever. You get onto your bike and head for the Evening Market. The seeds in your mind are growing and by the time you get there they start bearing fruit. These keep ripening while you are wandering about, putting together and finally purchasing all that is needed to make your inspiration come true. Head home for the final, crucial, cataclysmic act of creation. It is an experience that totally cleanses you of what may worry you leading to pure pleasure, salvation and exaltation.
There goes the doorbell! My friends with their ever more refined taste buds are here. The table is set, the second part of the evening is about to begin, full of knowledge and fun.
For the desk bound office worker, from clerk to manager, CEO to politician, it offers the challenge and satisfaction of making full use of the magic of one's hands interacting with the brain and the senses.
The Sophistication of Simplicity
What really is sophisticated cooking other than to work with the least number of ingredients to create culinary art. This is more likely to happen in a jungle in Laos or Lao village hut than a 3-star kitchen in France, or Bangkok for that matter.
Sophistication is Perfection in Simplicity
That's art; read Wilhelm Busch or Albert French, listen to Mozart or Santana, look at Vincent Van Gogh. It is agonising hard work to make something appear with such magic ease to convince, captivate, mesmerise, fascinate and last as unique.
Put my recipes to the test. How few ingredients they are made of. Another thing, there is no space in my kitchen for oven or microwave.
Today architecture and interior design are a battleground of opulence versus elegance, new-rich show-offs and old-moneyed discretion. Guess what reigns supreme? The same in cooking!
Keep things simple, use home grown produce. If you do not know to appreciate the local stuff and seem to think that you must have imports to tart up your menu to impress and compete, you have already lost before even having started. Convince me with your love and ingenuity, not fanciful names from faraway countries.
The creation of a meal, the way it is produced and consumed, define a civilisation. Accordingly the infamous starred Michelin restaurants rank rock bottom while the Lao farmer's evening meal comes out on top of the list.
Cook me a simple, honest to Buddha tom som pa, like Bangon's at the Kingfisher Ecolodge in Champasak, and I shall taste whether you really know how and care to cook!
The Quantification of Quality
With regard to the debate about Quantity Measurements versus Intuition, and the very essence of this guide book, it would certainly have been smarter in terms of its marketability if I had indicated measurements for each and every item.
Weights, more often than not, are studiously converted from some weird English or American unit into very precise 436 grams. Read the food pages of any newspaper or magazine if you don't believe that such nonsense actually exists and is taken seriously to boot.
In reality, whose appetite are we talking about? Which norms would honestly apply from one person to the other, my fingertips to my wife's, teaspoon size in this country to the one an ocean across?
We are talking here about cooking the Asian way. There is neither room nor need for silly measurements!
This book is an extension of my design art. Art is not quantifiable. It can neither be measured by the size of a canvas and litres of paint, the number of musical notes in a symphony, cubic and square meters of concrete... nor in grams, fingertips and teaspoons.
This is all about experimenting and gaining confidence in due course. Trust yourself and get started; that's what it takes, no more, no less!
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