Studying the Food Chain in Chiang Mai

Oh, this was my kind of school. Instead of pencils, we had spatulas. Instead of blackboards, we had black woks. Instead of notebooks, noodles.

As at most schools, we learned much from our teachers’ lectures, learned more when they demonstrated and learned the most when we did the work ourselves, however badly. But unlike most classrooms, the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School let us eat our lessons. We graduated magna cum stuffed.

My wife, Janice, and I love to cook. She’s better at it, but I have more fun, probably because, unlike her, I am not burdened by the belief that cooks should clean up after themselves. We’ve taken cooking classes--even in tropical cuisine--at home near Washington, D.C. But somehow one is not in the proper frame of mind to execute tropical dishes when one must slog through snowbanks to reach class. In Chiang Mai we had the right setting.

This old northern Thai city has many enticements: a cuisine with such rich, complex spices that a seemingly simple noodle dish becomes a seminar in contrasting flavors; ancient Buddhist temples whose golden adornments communicate sensuousness along with their spirituality; people so welcoming that jaded visitors quickly set aside their skepticism. And then there are the prices.

In light of all of its cultural attractions, it seems crass to say so, but Chiang Mai is a bargain. Two people can eat well for less than $5. Luxurious hotel rooms are the price of a Motel 6 in the U.S. And the dirty clothes you left with the family-operated laundry in the morning will be ready that evening--washed, dried, ironed and folded--for 30 baht, about 70 cents.

Janice and I came to Chiang Mai after discovering that Bangkok was just too much city for us. I don’t regret our three days in Bangkok. The majesty of its temples is almost greater than the human brain can process. But the city is so crowded, so busy, so unwalkable.

Chiang Mai is about 435 miles northwest, in the little lobe of land squeezed between Myanmar and Laos--and it feels even farther away. The city was founded in 1296 by King Mengrai, at the time a prince from southern China, who gave it the name Nopburi Sri Nakorn Ping Chiang Mai (understandably shortened to Chiang Mai, or “New City”) and put walls and a moat around it. Although its control subsequently passed back and forth between Thais and Burmese, it became a regional capital and the center of commerce and Buddhist culture.

The population is about 173,000, making it Thailand’s second-largest city. Clearly modern, the city nonetheless reveres its ancient treasures. No high-rise construction is permitted near temples, and the old moat has been cleaned up and improved with fountains that keep the water moving.

After arriving, we located the hotel we had selected through a reservation service at the Bangkok airport. The comfortable though plain Chiang Mai Gate Hotel is typical of what’s considered mid-range accommodations here. We paid $31 a night; some hotels and guest houses were $5 or less but didn’t have a private bath. Turns out our bath was one of those setups where the shower stall is the entire bathroom, which meant that, if we showered at night, we started the next day with a disheartening walk on a wet floor.

Such mild annoyances aside, we had grand days in Chiang Mai, particularly when we happened upon the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School and signed up for a full day of English-language instruction.

Sompon and Elizabeth Nabnian have operated this school since 1993, offering daylong courses for casual cooks like Janice, me and our eight classmates, each of whom seemed to find it as we did: while strolling along the moat.

The school (www.thaicookeryschool.com) changes menus daily, so one could make a week of it. Students prepared six courses and got to eat what they cooked--another bargain, considering the tuition was only $43.21 for Janice and me. Heck, the complimentary cookbooks were worth almost that.

The class began with a trip to the Somphet Market, so we could start like real Thai cooks--assuming that real Thai cooks wander around smelling this, prodding that. Or asking dumb questions. Or taking flash pictures of stacked bamboo shoots, muddy-looking mounds of chili paste, baskets of marble-size miniature eggplants or snarls of “snake beans” (imagine foot-long string beans).

In the large, open-air hall, we saw and sniffed all the aromatic ingredients we would be using: galangal, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, turmeric, coconut, and red and green chilies in various grades of lethality.

A fishmonger efficiently dispatched a fish with the unglamorous name of “serpent head” and quickly scaled and gutted it. Was it destined to be part of the red curry with fish we would cook? Should I have felt guilty?

Back in the classroom each student received a wok, a saucepan, a small propane stove, a wicked cleaver and other utensils. Our instructors demonstrated the process of making a dish--chopping, searing, stirring, garnishing--then watched us attempt the same. (They were vigilant about sanitation and particularly watchful about cross-contamination of raw and cooked food.)

We began with a soup of chicken, lemon grass and coconut milk. In the process we learned how to dice straw mushrooms so that they become their own cooking thermometers, opening up as they reach the peak of flavor. Soon the classroom--actually the dining room of a restaurant co-owned with the school--was filled with zingy aromas. I was tempted to dab soup behind each ear.

Next was red curry with fish, which taught us to be attentive to the heat of our woks, as the first commandment is: Thou shalt not burn chili paste. Many Thai dishes start by frying the paste, whose distinctive and intense aroma filled our lungs and assaulted our sinuses as we passed roadside food stalls throughout the country.

We recharged our woks and made stir-fried mushrooms with baby corn, and then “big noodles” with pork and vegetables. By lunch break we had four dishes, each with a distinct personality. Like the proud parent of multiple children, I loved them all best.

In the afternoon session, we prepared a traditional Thai green papaya salad made from shreds of the namesake fruit, lime juice, palm sugar, dried shrimp, high-octane chilies and some of those snake beans, cut up bite size.

Our only failure was the dessert, banana cake, which tasted less like cake and more like a stiff banana-coconut pudding. Oh, well. It was fun to make, steaming it in a banana leaf rather than baking it.

Overall I was pleased. Usually my standard for my culinary creations is “no one actually died.” But in Chiang Mai, I would have been willing to match some of our cooking against that of Thai restaurants at home. For farang (Westerners), we weren’t bad Thai chefs.

Janice and I paid attention to soul nourishment as well. Finding Buddhist temples, or wats, is easy in Chiang Mai, as 300 are in or near the city.

Wat Chiang Man is the city’s oldest, founded in 1296, the same year King Mengrai established the city.

Inside is a small crystal Buddha statue, a spiritual treasure estimated to be 1,800 years old, set inside two sets of barred windows and surrounded by candles and larger Buddhas. The mood in the darkened sanctuary appropriately communicates veneration, although in a corner of the room I saw a young monk, dressed in the traditional orange robe, clicking away at his computer.

Although age sets Wat Chiang Man apart, its exterior shares typical features: stone nagas (serpents), which rear up from the staircases; elephant themes in the statuary; chedi (spired monuments, often containing relics); and intricate gold-covered carvings, particularly around windows and doors and along roof lines.

And gentle entrepreneurship. At Wat Chiang Man, Janice bought a small basket-like cage that held two live birds, which she released for good luck. The birds reportedly are trained to return so that they can be caged again, sold again and released again. This may be the perfect business: a perpetually self-restocking inventory.

Taxi operators, a self-confident bunch, can plan a tour of Chiang Mai’s major wats. After they pointedly ask how long you expect to be in town, they happily will take command of your schedule, guiding your sightseeing, transporting you to restaurants and markets, and returning you to the airport. I suspect they would be delighted to arrange your marriage, your children’s educations and your funeral too, if you wanted.

Although some taxis in Chiang Mai are small sedans, the vast majority fall into three classes: samlor (bicycle-powered rickshaws), usually operated by old guys looking so frail that I couldn’t bring myself to hire one in the 90-degree heat; motorized versions called tuktuks because of their sputtering two-cycle engines; and the zeelor, a red pickup with two benches mounted in its covered box. (The human spine was not designed to withstand the forces of riding a zeelor in stop-start Chiang Mai traffic, but we did.) Janice, our family’s designated bargainer, discovered that rates for all are negotiable.

A tuktuk driver talked us into a tour of the remaining major religious sites. With its small motor screaming like a weed whacker, the three-wheeled vehicle carried us from temple to temple along the ancient avenues. Although I am hardly of NBA height, my head bumped the canopy, and the only view I had was of the pavement. I felt as though I were wearing a hat 300 sizes too large.

We went to another school, but not as students. Our son, a visitor to Chiang Mai years ago, encouraged us to find “Mama Nit, a little old lady with hands of steel.” She presides over a small school that teaches traditional Asian massage.

I have enjoyed massages at fancy resorts but was unprepared for Baan Nit school. It had no sophisticated massage table, no New Age music, no aromatherapy. It was a non-air-conditioned room filled with mattresses.

But the international corps of student masseurs and masseuses approached their tasks with an almost spiritual intensity. A young Costa Rican reverently ran me through a routine that seemed more like professional wrestling than a massage at the Four Seasons. Sometimes he lifted me, bending limbs back against themselves. But it was never painful.

Janice got a few minutes with Mama Nit herself before being handed off to a young student. The venerable maestra of massage speaks little English but does have strong, searching hands, smoothing out muscle knots and points of stress. We left feeling refreshed, healthy and about an inch taller. Our sessions went over an hour. The cost: $3.57 each.

But it was the food I loved most, especially when I wasn’t cooking it. The big open-air restaurant called Aroon Rai, for example, specializes in northern Thai cuisine, distinguished by its use of sticky rice, which is both side dish and utensil. I had to eat--sorry, Mom--with my fingers. The rice came to our table hot and moist in a tightly covered basket. I took a big pinch of it, formed it into a ball and wrapped it around a piece of papaya salad or curry. It got messy--I suggest packing a turmeric-colored wardrobe to make laundry simpler--but many restaurants have sinks in the dining room so that you can rinse your hands. Repeatedly.

I also loved the street food. We planned big dinners at nice sit-down restaurants, but then on our way there from our hotel, we passed through the night food market, along the southern moat by Chiang Mai Gate. Batter-fried fish fresh from the wok, or satay, or prawns, or sweet little sausages distracted us. We had to eat them. This was cultural research, after all.

Not that everything was a winner. Sometimes we bit into something new, stopped, looked at each other and wondered, what the heck was that?

But then some other scent--freshly fried Chinese doughnuts, perhaps--would grab us. And then some hot, custard-filled dumplings. Then we were no longer interested in that big dinner.

On our last full day in Chiang Mai, we hired a zeelor to take us 10 miles out and up to Wat Phra That, a 14th century temple with a commanding view of the city from its post on Doi Suthep, a mile-high hill northwest of town. Wat Phra That has the granddaddy of naga staircases, extending 300 steps. At the top we found a virtual wat city: a brilliant chedi, soaring red and gold roofs, huge gold-lace umbrellas, elephant shrines. The temples were crowded with people bringing offerings of flowers, kneeling in devotion in the incense-clouded sanctuaries and being blessed by monks who sprinkled holy water on them with long-stemmed lotus flowers.

Epilogue: We left Chiang Mai to go to Malaysia, Cambodia and Taiwan, and now we’re home. The pictures we took are a big hit with friends. But I’m not engrossed in the photo album as much as I am in cookbooks from the school.

“Look at this,” I’ll say. “On the fifth day they make red curry with duck.” For me, it’s always back-to-school time.

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Guidebook: Chewing on Chiang Mai

Getting there: Thai Airways offers connecting service (change of planes) from LAX to Chiang Mai. Restricted round-trip fares start at $803.

Travelers coming from Bangkok can fly Thai Airways to Chiang Mai; the one-way fare for the 70-minute flight is $53. Train and bus services are available but slow (at least 11 hours, even on an express). Bus service is less than $10 one way; a train will cost $4 to $30.

Also consider promotions such as Malaysia Airlines’ AccessAsia Pass and Cathay Pacific’s All Asia Pass, which include round-trip passage from L.A. to an Asian gateway plus flights between major Asian cities for a flat fee. The AccessAsia and All Asia passes include Bangkok but not Chiang Mai.

Telephones: To call the numbers below from the U.S., dial 011 (the international dialing code), 66 (country code for Thailand) and 53 (the area code for Chiang Mai).

Where to stay: Rydges Tapae Chiangmai Hotel, 22 Chaiyapoom Road; 251-531, fax 251-465, www.rydges-chiangmai.com. Opened this year. A large, gracious hotel well located across the eastern moat from the old town. Doubles from $42.

Imperial Mae Ping Hotel, 153 Sridonchai Road; 283-900, fax 270-085, www.imperialhotels.com/maeping. Large business hotel in eastern part of town, near the popular Night Bazaar. Doubles start at $53-$89, depending on season.

Chiang Mai Gate Hotel, 11/10 Suriwong Road; 203-895, fax 279-085, e-mail cmgate@loxinfo.co.th. Mid-range hotel in a quieter neighborhood a few blocks outside old town. Doubles from $16.

Where to eat: Expect to pay less than $10 per person at any of the following.

Aroon Rai Restaurant, 45 Kotchasan St.; 276-947. Open-air restaurant near eastern moat. Specializes in northern Thai cuisine and makes a delightful version of fresh mango with sticky rice, a traditional dessert.

J.J. Bakery, Tha Phae Street just east of the moat; 208-778. Nice spot for Thai food novices. Good renditions of Western and Thai cuisine.

Heuan Phen, 112 Ratchamankha St.; 277-103. Excellent northern Thai dishes in a memorable setting: a small garden that leads to an antique-filled dining room. Superb curries.

Chiang Mai Gate night market, Bamrungburi Street (not to be confused with Night Bazaar). Dozens of vendors bring woks and portable stoves to a strip along the southern moat and old city wall near the Chiang Mai Gate. Watch food cooked to order nightly. You’ll stuff yourself for $2 or less.

For more information: Tourism Authority of Thailand, 611 N. Larchmont Blvd., 1st Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90004; (800) THAILAND (842-4526) or (323) 461-9814, fax (323) 461-9834, www.tourismthailand.org.

TAT, 105/1 Chiang Mai-Lamphun Road, Chiang Mai; 248-604, www.tat.or.th/province/north/chi-mai/welcome/.

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Jerry V. Haines is a lawyer in Washington, D.C.