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Press, 3 February 1987, Page 10

“I don’t miss Bangkok — too noisy and too many people — but I do miss the markets very much. When I first came here I tried to bargain.” Vicky Searle giggles at the memory, but recollects that the startled shopkeeper must have been impressed, for he agreed to let her have the vegetables at a reduced price. Life in Christchurch must have been strange for the 17-year-old Vispar, ffesh from school, training to be a tourist guide, who had struck a bargain with a New Zealander living in the apartment block where her mother worked for some American diplomats — she would be his tourist guide in exchange for English lessons — and ended up marrying her teacher and coming to live in his hometown. She found New Zealanders couldn’t cope with her name, and got used to being called Vicky.

She didn’t like New Zealand food — still can’t stand the smell of lamb — and at first sent home to her mother for seeds of the vegetables and fruit she was used to: chillies, small, hot ones and big, slightly milder ones, branch eggplants, melons like tiny beans, gourds, four or five different kinds of watercress, and makrood, whose bitter juice used in a marinade takes the unpleasant smell away from fish. Marinating is typical of Thai cooking, she explains, partly because it preserves food in a hot and humid climate, and partly because it enables cheaper and less flavourful meat and fish to be used. Thais make curries of all sorts, and use a lot of spices, for similar reasons.

Gradually, Vicky started improvising with Chinese products. During the last five years she has found a vast improvement in the availability of Asian foods in Christchurch, including fragrant rice and genuine Thai curry pastes spice mixtures, and fish

sauce, made from squid, which she gets from Simco.

What she can’t buy in Christchurch, she finds she can get by mail from Wellington, or Sydney: a bamboo rice steamer, for . example, and coconut palm sugar. Food aside, the way of life in New Zealand pleases her — “It’s so quiet and no-one’s in a hurry” — so when her husband died, although she was only 21, she didn’t return home, but courageously decided to stay.

Her second husband, Ken, is enthusiastic about Thai food — and Vicky’s cooking in particular —

and she enjoys encouraging Kiwis to eat more adventurously at her stall at the Asian Food Fair, where she offers Thai meatballs, pork ribs with oregano, sugar and mustard, and Masman curry: made with potato flavoured with onion and red and green peppers. “It’s sweet, and not too hot — children like it,” she says. This is Vicky’s recipe for: Masman curry with chicken: To serve eight you need: 1 Chicken (size 7 or 8) 1 can coconut cream, plus 1 can water, otherwise it’s too sticky 5 to 7 small potatoes, peeled and cut in pieces 2 onions cut in quarters & 3 tablespoons Masman curry paste (available in tins) 1 teaspoon lemon juice (optional) 3 tablespoons Thai fish sauce (nampla) OR 1 to 2 tablespoons salt 1 tablespoons sugar % cup shelled peanuts % cup vegetable oil 1 red apple or red pepper, sliced 1 green apple or green pepper, sliced You can also add 2 sliced carrots or a can of baby corn, or fresh sweet corn. Cut the chicken in

pieces. You can bone it, but Vicky prefers to leave in the bones as its stops the meat disintegrating. Heat the oil, add the Masman paste and the chicken and half cook. Add the onion onion, coconut cream and water, and other ingredients except potatoes and apples or peppers. Bring to the boil and simmer. Ten minutes before you are ready to dish up, add the potatoes. When they are cooked, add the apples or peppers. Serve with boiled rice. Boiled rice To serve eight, take six cups of long grain, preferably fragrant rice and boil in 6 l / 2 cups of water. Do not add salt, or the rice will go mushy, Vicky warns. Turn the heat down and cook until dry, stirring occasionally. Then turn the heat down as low as possible, half cover the pan and leave until the rice is quite dry. As Thais eat with spoons, the grains don’t need to cling together. Don’t waste the rice that sticks to the bottom of the pan, Vicky says, add oil and pop it! She uses a different kind of rice for this unusual dessert: Sticky rice and black bean pudding Soak 2% cups black beans overnight, cook until soft. Add most of a can of coconut cream and 2 tablespoons of sugar, preferably coconut sugar. Steam 2 cups glutinous rice, preferably long grain, until clear. Add y 2 teaspoon salt and the rest of the coconut cream. Serve hot, a dollop of rice topped with a dollop of beans. It may sound odd, but I can vouch that it’s delicious — though strictly for those with a sweet tooth. It is the sort of dish that Thais would buy

from stallholders in the market and eat as a snack rather than to round off a meal. In fact, for many Thais, to eat from stallholders is cheaper and more convenient than cooking at home, Vicky says.

“It’s riot a tradition to learn to cook at home if you’re wealthy enough. I learnt because I enjoyed cooking my own things, but my parents didn’t teach me.

“I learnt by watching my aunt and people working in the market, and questioning them. That way you learn to cook to suit your own taste.” Vicky shows with pride photographs of her family, especially her younger brother, who looks almost twice her size. Following Thai tradition, he is about to spend a period as a monk, and she is planning a visit home for the celebrations. But for herself, she’s glad she made the break.

“It’s very hard for Thai women to be successful. Although there have been big changes recently, it’s still an old-fashioned society in many ways.”