Four Flavors, One Cuisine

Erika's- "Four Flavors, One Cuisine"

The food of Thailand is startlingly bold and imaginative. Carefully crafted to appeal to all of the senses, it combines beautiful presentation with fragrant aromas, contrasting yet complimenting flavors and textures and often-fearsome chili-heat.

Thai cuisine is said to be one of the world’s first fusion cuisines. Over time the Thai people have borrowed cooking techniques and ingredients such as Eastern Indian spices, Portuguese peppers, Chinese noodles and steaming, plus neighboring S.E. Asian sautés. These borrowed ingredients and techniques were then combined with ancient local seasonings such as: the basic flavorings of garlic and cilantro; fresh tasting lemon grass and pungent Thai herbs; heat of the pepper; sour kaffir lime and tamarind; galangal, sweet coconut and palm sugar and salty shrimp paste and fish sauce to create a cuisine that is distinctly Thai.

The flavors mentioned above are by no means subtle but Thai cooking blends them into graceful dishes where no one taste overpowers the next. Above all Thai cooks value balance, it is the combination and balance of Hot, Salty, Sour & Sweet that makes this food so vibrant... tonight we will explore 'Four Flavors, One Cuisine'!
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THAI DRINKS:
JESS- Cocktail:Mixture of many ingredients + alcohol
SHELLEE- Sommelier:`súmul'yey, manager of wine service
AMANDA- N/A Bev.: Simple beverage, no alcohol ie. tea
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SHOPPING FOR THAI INGREDIENTS:
"Asia Market" 265 E.Hastings St.
Located in China Town around Main and Gore St.
http://www.vaneats.com/shopping/asia.market
Ph. 604-688-6824

THAI WEB-RESOURCES:
http://www.chetbacon.com/thai-html/thai.html
http://www.thaitable.com/
http://www.templeofthai.com/thai_recipes/thai_recipes.html
http://www.importfood.com/recipes.html
http://www.northernthailand.com/cm/recipes/thai-recipes/