World Food Tour - Vegan Thailand

We are back with a spicy episode and this week the Vegan Life Podcast delves into the Thai cuisine where coconut, galangal and vegan shrimp paste are life. Jake Yapp is joined by Napat Chawsoun who runs a vegan cafe and hostel in Northern Thailand, and comes from a family who works in food locally. Napat has a great grasp of Thai cooking and food anthropology. Kip Dorrell is a food writer, Thai food enthusiast and founder of Messy Vegan Cook blog which mainly consists of authentic Thai recipes and Jajah Totienchai is the founder of the vegan restaurant/bakery chain, Veganerie which is hugely successful in Thailand. From beginning to end, this episode is packed with information about Thai culture. Jajah starts off the episode telling us how Thai food is different regionally; for example, in the south of Thailand the food is very spicy, in the centre it is milder and sweet, whereas in the east the flavours are very sour. Jajah also shares with the podcast the Jain way of living and how it is different to general veganism. We get a 101 on soy sauce from Kip and learn everything we need to know about coconut milk. For example did you know that there is a head and tail to coconut milk? No we didn’t either! And presumably you have been cooking coconut milk wrong all these years. Napat shares a revelation about a shrimp paste substitute that involves a very popular ingredient that we Brits love to be divided on. There are many more surprises throughout the episode; with one from Kip, as she explains that marinating is a myth and shares a top tip on how to penetrate flavour into your food. We end with Kip explaining that a lot of non-nationals go to Thailand on holiday and ask for food to be cooked how local people would traditionally eat it. You’ve been warned – you’ll be getting a spicy meal! We hope you’ve enjoyed your virtual trip to Thailand this week; if you try any of the tips or recipes from this episode, be sure to let us know.