Thai cuisine guide
Where it comes from
Thai cooking is organised around balance — hot, sour, salty, sweet, adjusted per dish rather than fixed by recipe. Fish sauce provides salt and depth, tamarind and lime the sourness, palm sugar the counterweight. Regional cooking differs sharply: the north is milder and herbal, the northeast is fiery and fermented, the south is coconut-rich with Malay influence.
Much of the chilli heat now considered definitive arrived with Portuguese traders in the sixteenth century; the older heat came from peppercorns.
Allergens and dietary needs
Peanut and shellfish are the allergens to record carefully. Peanut appears in sauces and garnishes well beyond satay, and shrimp paste — kapi — sits in curry pastes that otherwise read vegetarian, as does fish sauce.
That last point matters commercially as well as safely: a guest asking for a vegetarian curry is asking about the paste, and the honest answer is often no unless the kitchen keeps a separate one.
Naming it on an English-language menu
Keep the Thai name and add the components: “Som tam — green papaya, lime, chilli, peanut.” That single line also surfaces two of the most common allergens on a Thai menu.
Be explicit where a curry paste contains shrimp paste or fish sauce. A guest asking whether the vegetable curry is vegetarian is asking about the paste, and the honest answer is often no.
Staple ingredients
- rice
- fish sauce
- lemongrass
- chili