Chilly Lovin'

In Thailand, you eat everything with chillies. The spicier the better. I've always like spice, but not to the extent I do now. Food without them is bland. (I put Tabasco on a tuna sandwich because it was blah!) If your nose doesn't run, eyes don't tear up, or lips don't burn, is it worth eating? I submit that it is not. This is a random rant that came about as I was eating Som Tom, which is one of my favorite Thai dishes. It's a spicy green papaya salad. They put in a ton of chillies. As I was eating it, my nose was running. However, this did not stop me. I continued to enjoy my spicy salad. Then this morning, I had some fruit. Well, in order to make the fruit more delicious, you put chilly on it of course! It's a sugar, chilly, salt mixture. It's kind of like Lucas for my friends who know what that is. I began coughing and my nose was even burning from eating it. It was so good, though. I'll be surprised if I get out of this country without having obtained an ulcer. I'm hoping not, though.

Here are some pictures of chillies that I found on google to give you an idea of what some of the chillies look like over here.

This is my favorite and I like to put it on virtually everything. It's just dried, crushed red peppers.

Some people prefer them off the vine as seen here.

Here are a couple other varieties. The ones on the left are just dried.

Now this is what we have at Legacy since Fon is back. It's called Nam Prik, which is liquid spice you put on your rice and other things to give more flavor.

It's good stuff! Wish you could all try some. :)

-Lainy J.