Khao Tom – Thai Rice Soup
Whoopy once, whoopy twice, whoopy chicken soup with rice. These words from Maurice Sendak’s Nutshell Library have repeated themselves in my mind as a sort of litany as the weather has gotten colder and I’ve been moaning my nights away with arthritic limbs and a stomach bug that made the rounds recently. The fact of the matter is we all have those days when we need “soulfood”. That kind of gentle, non-threatening food that we can imagine our mothers giving us when we were sick and little.
We all have these foods from our respective homelands, but there are always equivalents that we can find shelter in while we are abroad. And to this end I would like to bring to the attention of everyone the noblest of nasty morning dishes on the Thai table, Khao Tom.
The modest, unassuming rice soup is a soothing, gentle, and perfectly balanced way to nourish the troubled tummy and weary mind. By perfectly balanced I refer to its combination of hot and cold elements as prescribed by Chinese traditional medicine. The balance of ginger, garlic, herbs, broth, and vegetables creates a soup that you can feel surge through you with its rejuvenating goodness.
Like other bases in Thai cuisine it is served with a broad range of proteins. Chicken and pork are the most common, but you will also see fish and shrimp. For me though, after crawling through several days worth of a liquid diet composed of electrolyte drinks, protein powders, and stomach medicine (ya taut nam kao, flying rabbit on the label, in case you ever need to buy the stuff) there were no choices but pork or chicken. Thus the Khao Tom Moo in the pictures.
Travel is rough on the system. Bad reactions to foreign food are common, though things like yogurt go a long way in preventing them. Bacteria aside, just sitting in trains, planes and automobiles for extended periods of time, re-adjusting to new sleep environments and sleep schedules on an almost daily basis, and the irregularities of diet imposed by these all take a toll.
I have had, and I imagine you have too or at least will have eventually, mornings on the road that were not easy to face. Take my advice and face those mornings, assuming you’re in Thailand or Laos, with a hot bowl of Khao Tom Gai or Moo and more likely than not they will turn into good days.
