[.ca] Thai Food (ISBN 1862055149)

From Amazon.com:
"Thai cooking is a paradox," writes Australian restaurateur David Thompson in his comprehensive and thus aptly named Thai Food. "It uses robustly flavored ingredients--garlic, shrimp paste, chilies, lemongrass--and yet when they are melded during cooking they arrive at a sophisticated and often subtle elegance." Pursuing this transformation in depth, his book presents hundreds of recipes that celebrate the Thai meal while exploring its historical and cultural context. Readers will delight in the wide selection of authentic dishes like Duck and Spring Onion Soup, Grilled Beef Salad, and Green Chicken Curry with Baby Corn, and relish Thompson's vast appreciation of his subject. Though the recipes are straightforward and workable once ingredients are assembled and techniques understood, those new to Thai cooking may want a less rigorous introduction to the subject. However, anyone with an appetite to explore it on Thompson's terms will benefit immensely. Beginning with an exploration of Thailand's history and culture, the book then presents an extended section on rice, the centerpiece of the Thai meal. The "cookbook" follows, with a systematic introduction to the Thai kitchen, ingredients, and equipment. The chapter "Food Outside the Meal" is devoted to Thai snacks and vendor food, such as Stir-Fried Crisp Fish with Holy Basil. Noodle dishes include an exemplary pad thai, and sweet dishes like Grilled Bananas with Coconut Cream and Turmeric are also offered. Readers should know that the recipes, published primarily for an Australian audience, give ingredients in a mix of metric and American measurements and/or with nonmetric equivalents, and that nomenclature is also sometimes foreign ("minced" for "ground" meat, for example). With photos throughout, the book sets a standard for Thai cookbooks to come while helping many cooks achieve the true, richly exotic cuisine. --Arthur Boehm

A real insight into Thai cooking for the serious enthusiast!:
I recommend this book only for serious enthusiasts who are truly passionate about authentic Thai cooking/food and are not looking for quick, adapted recipes! Having enjoyed authentic Thai food during my trips to Thailand, I am repeatedly disappointed with the adapted versions found in most local restaurants here. Since I am an avid cook, I have been experimenting to replicate the dishes I had in Thailand. After some research I found David Thompson's "Thai Food" to be a rare find. Most Thai cook books I have come across provide adapted recipes with shortcuts and suggested substitutes for ingredients! How dreadful! Undoubtedly, Thai food involves much effort and can even be tedious. But the taste is well worth it. More importantly, ingredients in Thai cooking CAN NOT be substituted if the REAL flavor and aroma are to be achieved. For example, if you are going to substitute regular ginger for galangal (Thai ginger), or lime zest for kaffir lime zest, as many books suggest - you may as well not cook Thai food! This is what sets David's book apart from the rest - he sticks to the real stuff! He painstakingly explains all the details of real Thai cooking, discussing each ingredient and various techniques followed by the recipes. While some recipes are quite cumbersome or require ingredients which are not easily available, the book is worth the insight it provides into authentic Thai cuisine. Once you understand the basics, you can be creative by combing basic Thai ingredients with techniques and create your own recipes without straying from the flavors, tastes and aroma of REAL Thai cuisine! One complaint however: where is the recipe for Yum Woon Sen??

A serious book:
This is one awesome book! Being a professional chef myself, this is the one and only Thai cookbook you need if you are getting into some serious and authentic Thai cooking. I personally, have learn't so much from this book. Also, it might be be noted, that David Thompson, being an Australian, was commissioned by the Thai government to authenticate the traditional Thai recipes! For a government to to do, this is such an honour!

A Classic:
This is the one. The definitive guide to Thai cuisine. Having lived in Thailand I can say that this book is destined to be a classic. Thorough is an understatement. Beautiful design and photography. The only fault is a disappointing Thai transliteration system devised by the author and no Thai script to back it up. But the average reader will have no use for Thai script anyway. This isn't a weekend cookbook, it's Larousse. And that's why it's great.

Woah!:
Simply Stunning. The best cook book on a single cuisine I have ever read. The Larousse of Thai Food. If all cook books were written like this the world would be a better place,

Vast, and definitely worth the effort:
After cooking about the fifth dish from this book ("Stir Fried Beef with Spices") with palate-boggling success , I would like to recommend this book to anybody serious about Thai cooking. While there are no shortcuts (consistent with the author's view to keep things as original as possible) the result is well worth the effort. Some things sound more complicated than they are. Furthermore, this is the first Thai cookbook out of the five or six I have got which explains in detail some really important techniques (like the cracking of coconut cream and why this is important for frying curry pastes). The background chapters are highly recommended. My two open questions are why the Gaeng Panaeng is far from "dry" (with about five cups of coconut milk/cream) and why there is no recipe for Yam Wun Sen (a favourite of my Thai girlfriend, and I thought it was a classic dish). But these are minor points and maybe there is a good reason (I would be curious to learn). All in all: Highly recommended, together with "Vatch" Bhumichitr's books (whose writing style and inside country knowledge I also like very much) my favourite cookbook.