It seems every day is market day in Sichon, or at least, every day that I go past the place.
It’s a huge open-sided covered area adjacent to, and sometimes spilling onto highway 401; which makes it easy to reach from almost everywhere. Sundays are especially busy, meaning parking spaces are a premium commodity.
The market mostly sells meat, fish and vegetables, but there’s a wide variety of other goods on sale too; flowers, clothes, lottery tickets, etc.
But you can’t shop early Sunday morning on an empty stomach, so first stop was food…
…biryani-style rice with chicken, plus marinated cucumber and crispy fried onions on the side, washed down with typically-strong sweet Thai coffee. Okay, now we can go shopping…
Before we get into the “what the heck are those?” queries, here’s a few more general views…
Of course, when it comes to meat and fish, well, I think most people can recognize meat and fish! And Sichon Market has a lot of meat and fish…
But how many of you will recognize the things in the next photographs?
Well, if you are Asian or have lived in Asia, you may well say “yeah, yeah, nothing unsual here,” but if I had to describe them, I’d be saying “green things, round things, leafy things” because frankly I wouldn’t have a clue. Luckily, two friends (plus Google) helped out with the following descriptions…
The name of these sounds something like rakam. They come in two varieties, sweet and sour. The sweet ones can be eaten like fruit, whereas the sour ones are used in fish soup or yellow fish curry.These are cashew nut leaves. They can be eaten as a vegetable, or added to curries.These are called luk nieng in Thailand, or jenkol / jering in Malaysia / Indonesia. There is an edible nut inside which can be fried, boiled, roasted, or eaten raw.Phak krached. They can be sir fried with oyster sauce, or included in various kinds of Thai salads,Easy one. These are peanuts.Various kinds of egg plants, used in stir fries.These contain rice powder and coconut meat, and are eaten as dessert – once you’ve unwrapped them of course.The name of these is something like jujun – some kind of powder cake. Whatever. They look delicious. Must try next time. (Cooking at the top, cooked at the bottom.)The lotus stems are peeled and used in coconut & tuna soup.This is called fak kheiyw, and I think it’s best not to run those words together! It’s added to coconut soup.Morning glory, sometimes called water spinach. Not to be confused with the morning glory flower. Eaten stir fried.Another easy one. A slice of pumpkin.These are a kind of aromatic bean called luk riang. They can be eaten as a vegetable or added to curries.These are slices of the stems of a banana plant. Guess what? They’re used in curries!Tamarind leaves. Used in fish soup and yellow curries.Parts of a wild boar (probably best not to ask which parts) used in red curries.
So now you know! As you probably noticed, there’s a common theme. Just about everything is used in curries, but then, there’s so many different kinds of Thai curries, which – to state the obvious – wouldn’t be different if they didn’t have different ingredients.
I’m quite sure, if I’d hunted more, I’d have found a dozen more things that I would have been unable to name, but to be honest, I was more interested in photographing people…
They didn’t seem to mind, in fact they revelled in their fifteen minutes of fame.
It was a fascinating morning, well, early morning, and I have every intention of returning to find out what, and who, I missed.
...has been travelling the world for more than sixty years; having lived and worked in five countries and travelled to many many more.
He likes to write about his travels - present and past - along with his other main interests of Drones, Information Technology and Motorsport, and he adds a few general twitterings along the way.
He is currently General Manager of CMY Media in Thailand specializing in drone training plus aerial videos and photography.
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It was a fascinating morning, well, early morning, and I have every intention of returning to find out what, and who, I missed.