Delightful Thai Wife In Europe – Thought For Food

Now with a Thai wife around, the fridge is fuller and the corridor more orderly. And when I pop into the kitchen to grab another cup of tea, more often than not I am stared at by - a dead fish in the sink, next to a frightening imported Asian knife, waiting to be processed for yet another whopping Thai dish.

And looking around me, the new earthen pots on the window sills and out on the balcony are full of lovely flowers, but even more full of anything edible from chili to Chinese leek, from Thai basil to lemongrass, then scallions and a lot of stuff I can't name. We get these plants from specialised mail-order houses. Nahlee, my SE Asian wife, also brings seeds in from her home country and grows offshoots from potted herbs she finds on local markets in Europe or in our Asia stores. She happily also grows Euro things like Italian basil, oregano or thyme. Interestingly, though, she refuses to eat the spicy and vitamin-rich leaves or the mild sweet flowers of the nasturtium which we keep for their lovely yellow and orange blossoms. All the stuff she grows looks green and happy - I'd never get it growing like that.

My Nahlee surely is an avid gardener.

Dried Food

One friend has a special considerate present for Nahlee: She brings a small chili bush from the flower shop - full of chili fruit. Nahlee beams! Says the friend: "And these are real spicy chilies, I was told by the shop clerk. Edible and spicy! Not just decorum."

Nahlee can't hold back any longer. She picks a chili fruit and stuffs it into her mouth and - her face drops one meter! She looks shocked. "What is this", she asks? "This tastes like - absolutely nothing. Hans, try, even you could eat this!" Never did I see such an disappointment on her face.

The chili pot remains untouched where she dropped it, near the stove. After two weeks the bush dies from not getting any water at all.

My Nahlee surely is an avid gardener - if the results do please her eyes or palate.

Thought for Food

We drive the car through a remote forest area. I spot a cute squirrel scurrying over the ground and up a tree.

“Look, a squirrel”, I go! “You have those in Thailand, too?”

“Sure we have. Can kill, grill and keep in whiskey. Good for body.”

We keep driving through the remote forest area. I spot a cute deer. I don’t speak.

Food Fed

Nahlee and i already agreed that Europeans have a tendency to finish a dish until the plate is empty;  while Thais'd rather leave something on the plate and in the bowls, so they don’t appear to be hungry and unfed. I pray to Nahlee to give me just another spoon of rice and curry, but she scoops another plate. Once this is in front of me, I find it difficult not to finish the whole - unwanted - plate, of course sending out the wrong signal.

And it's not just her cooked food. She offers me a glass of juice, coffee or wine. If I say "just half a glass, dear", the glass will still be mostly full. Again, I have problems not to finish this, even though I shouldn't. Due to my unability to simply reject the food shoved onto my plates, I'm getting fatter. This is ok for her, actually I suspect this is her plan. I wonder if other Thai wives serve too much all the time too.

Food Fight

On wintery mornings, she walks out into the cold to buy her – favorite dark bread for breakfast! Even if she has lunch alone, she polishes off som tam and rice with a self-prepared cappuccino; a drink she didn’t know when she lived in Thailand. But of course, our imported Toshiba rice cooker is under steam several days a week.

"Haha", I say, "you really changed: You drink coffee, you eat dark bread and corn flakes - are you a Thai any more?"

"Why", she shoots back: "When I cook dinner, now you eat more spicy food than one year ago!" She wears a triumphant smile.

Food habits

"Now you eat your cheese sandwiches without chili", I remark over breakfast. "Why? You always used to put solid chili on top of Brie and Gouda."

"Now I enjoy cheese more than before. So I don’t need the chili anymore."

More Food Fight

My mouth is under fire. Ants maraud up and down my palate. Actually it’s more like a chainsaw massacre on my whole oral system.

Yes, I tried her super spicey food. Sitting there over my own spaghetti aglio olio (done unspicy) I suddenly remembered Joe Cummings’ words like, After I had this Thai food explosion in my mouth once, all western food seemed bland. I felt bland too, so I tried a forkful of Nahlee’s own Thai dish.

How could I be so stupid?

A California scale fire blaze rages through my mouth. Water won’t help I know. There is no plain white rice within easy reach, nor white bread.

Nahlee watches me interestedly, like a scientist watches a guinea pig exposed to hazardous conditions.

"And what’s worst", I wheeze, "my lips, my lips... they are sooooo... burning..." I try hard not to pass out.

Nahlee has no empathy. Actually her eyes now get a slightly despising look:

"What – you touched this food with your lips? With your lips? Now that’s downright stupid."

More Thought For Food

"What would you like for dinner", she asks me - over breakfast.

We are just finishing off breakfast with a few slices of kiwi and apple and one last pumping espresso.

"For lunch", I go?

"Yes, I mean, no, tonight, I could make spring rolls and the sour salad you liked. Or do you fancy a curry over rice...?"

"Dear... now we just had bread with cheese and salad, joghurts, tea, espresso, mixed fruit juice, these fruit..."

"... We could do steamed fish today, or spicy fried noodles..."

"...Oh dear... I’m so full after breakfast, it’s really difficult to think about what I want to eat for dinner. I am too full to even *think* about food now."

She looks very puzzled. "Or do you need the spicy omlette over ciabatta again? I have the cha-om in the fridge, and ciabatta I can bring from town!"

"Don’t you know this feeling", I ask? "You’re so full with one meal, it is difficult even to imagine to eat something else."

"No – really not! I can always think about food. And why not: we had bread with cheese, joghurts, tea, espresso, mixed fruit juice, these fruit – so it’s no problem to think about something else, like  spring rolls and sour salad, curries, steamed fish, spicy fried noodles, Thai omlette..."

"Dear – I explode", I warn her, "full of breakfast food and with some more breakfast food in front of my eyes, I feel like bursting when I just have to talk about dinner food."

She falls silent and looks very puzzled. The cultural gap is there.

Finally she tries to explain:

"You know, in my family, while we have one lunch, we always discuss what we eat next lunch."

-

© hansmeiermail gmail