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 Southern
Thailand consists of a slender peninsula stretching down to
Malaysia, and is dramatically different from the rest of the
country in both scenery and culture. Lush jungle, craggy
limestone mountains and long stretches of beach are the most
familiar features of the landscape, rendered fertile by eight
months of rain a year and a near-equatorial sun. Cultivated
areas tend to be huge rubber and coconut plantations rather than
the rice fields and orchards of other parts of
Thailand.
 The
mosque adds its distinctive dome to the landscape, for the South
is home to most of Thailand's Muslims, its largest religious
minority. They are mostly concentrated in the provinces adjacent
to Malaysia, where Malay is spoken as commonly as Thai. In other
southern provinces such as
Songkhla and
Phuket, Chinese predominate.
Southern
food reflects all this diversity, together with other aspects of
the past when traders form India and Java sailed into the
numerous ports of the peninsula. The coconut, so much part of
the scenery, is used to the full, its milk thickening soups and
curries, its oil for frying, its grated fresh as a condiment.
Cashew nuts and pineapple also grow in volume, and form a
familiar part of the cuisine.
The
warm seas produce an abundance of fish, big lobsters, crabs,
mussels squid, prawns and scallops, prepared simply by steaming
or frying, or more elaborately by cooking in a clay pot with
noodles. Southerners like their food chilli-hot, and are also
fond of the bitter taste imparted by a flat, native bean called
sataw.
A
dish very typical of the South is Kaeng tai pla, a very hot
curry made with fish stomach, green beans, pickled bamboo shoots
and potato. Fresh turmeric turns this and many other southern
curries a distinctive yellow. There is even a dish that is
called simply "yellow curry" (kaeng leuang), made from fish,
green squash, pineapple, green beans and green papaya. With its
many Malay, Javanese and Indian influences, together with its
own creativity and abundance, the South Produces an
extraordinary range of curries, made from just about anything.
The
Chinese dish of thin rice noodles known as Khanom chin appears
here in a spicy Malay style fish curry sauce, served with dishes
of cucumber, pineapple, pickled cabbage and other fruits and
vegetables. There is a chicken speciality known as kai betong
(named after the town of Betong on the Thai-Malaysian border)
that consists of steamed chicken seasoned with soy sauce and
then stir-fried with green vegetables. Roti, a round flat wheat
bread descended from the Indian breads, is a real southern
favourite, totally assimilated into the local culture. There is
a large range, including some satisfying breakfast rotis.
Coffee,
grown in the South, is a popular beverage and coffee shops can
be found throughout the region. In some parts, the coffee will
be roasted on the premises with a charcoal-fired boiler, and
served with a range of snacks that can include steamed buns
filled with pork or bean paste, dumplings filled with shrimp or
pork, the thick rice soup, and a form of doughnut called pa
thong ko.
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Regional Thai Cuisine