I‘ve been thinking about chickens. The kind that cross the road and put Colonel Sanders on the map. Although somewhere between the chicken’s last cluck and the time you take a bite the Colonel does a whole lot of shit to the chicken to give it that oh so greasy and non-chicken-like flavor. The kinds of things that happen when we allow multinational corporations to tend our food supply. So, I’ve been thinking about getting a few chickens.
See, the closest we get in the West to our food source is the local supermarket where it comes wrapped and packaged with colorful labels. While living in a remote village in Thailand I learned another way … and got down and dirty with it.
How villagers make a meal
In this small village the option of running down to the local store isn’t so much an option. Not when their income is roughly one-third of the average Thai’s. So, they make do with what they have and have proven extremely self-sufficient with it.
The villagers are rice farmers (Thailand produces roughly 40% of the world’s rice) so they have plenty of it. A integral part of every meal, rice is practically a cultural necessity.
These water buffalo are the “tractors” that help pull in the rice crop. They obviously help with weed pulling detail, too…
After the harvest, rice which doesn’t get sold or traded goes into food storage for the coming year.
Along with rice, the fields provide some other interesting food choices. Namely, frogs and shrimp. Below is a trap (made in the village, of course) used in catching the shrimp.
And a catch of shrimp…
Food also comes from the surrounding jungle and gardens. Steamed bamboo… yeah, about as tasty as it sounds.
There’s a pond nearby. Daily trips bring home the second most important part of the village diet. Fish.
Now, I totally enjoy and normally suck at fishing. However, using a sewing line tied to a bamboo pole and a piece of styrofoam as a bobber, I did okay bringing home dinner.
Brought back to the kitchen to be cleaned and cooked up on a makeshift grill on the side of the house.
No meal is eaten without making sure some is set aside to honor the spirits and ancestors.
At each home, huge clay pots catch run off from rain to be used in washing, cooking, and cleaning.
To help bring in the baht (Thai money) the villagers use surrounding bamboo to craft traps, baskets, and other crafts they sell.
Bamboo is also whittled down to these strips then dried out. During harvest time, these strips are tied around the rice to make it easier to cut a bunch at time. Some of the strips are set aside for their own use, the rest are sold for about 20 baht (about 60 cents) for a couple hundred.
So, while there’s no supermarket down the street to be running off to they’re able to provide for themselves from the environment they live in. All gathered from within about a quarter mile of the village.
With so much time, effort, and care that goes into gathering their food it’s no wonder “meal time” is considered “family time”. Everyone sits and eats together, and food is one of the first things offered to friend or stranger passing by.