by Lydia Seiter – Chemical Engineering Junior, Studying Abroad
To celebrate the second week of classes here at Chiang Mai University, my friend Katie and I decided to indulge in an authentic Thai dessert!
We wandered down the street to the congregation of food trucks, or “raan kang tanon” (literally, “shops by the road”) to find a dessert stand. We stumbled upon this sight:
These are all the fixings for a Thai dessert soup! Clockwise from the top left:
- Taro noodles
- Sweet potato
- Salim, colorful noodles made from mung bean flour
- Crispy ruby red dyed water chestnuts
- Coconut pieces
- Candied pumpkin
- Palm fruit
- Grass jelly
- Basil seed
These ingredients are all added to a warm bowl of coconut milk and eaten with a spoon.
To order, Katie and I had to write down what we wanted on a small piece of paper. I’m only 2 classes into Reading & Writing Thai Language, so I only know about 10 of the 44 Thai characters. We found the picture with the most ingredients, and tried our best to copy down the description by sight:
Thankfully, the woman at the dessert cart gave us a smile of recognition and began preparing it. The soup came to us, and looked like this!
I have never tasted anything remotely similar to this dessert! The coconut milk was sweet, and the water chestnuts were crunchy. The grass jelly and noodles were vaguely gelatinous. And I never expected to be eating pumpkin and sweet potato for dessert! Add in all the colors, like bright pink, orange, black, and green, and I’m not sure if I would order this dish again. However, it was an interesting cultural experience and definitely out of my comfort zone.
