Burma sparks memories of a version (pretty dreadful too, to be honest) of British Christmas fare in a colonial-era guest house in the misty hills, with local kids singing carols outside. Bali is recollections of helping prepare endless intricate food offerings for a temple festival, while the sophisticated side of Singapore takes a back seat to memories of countless great meals whipped up in a wok at the local food stalls.
You might wonder how could there be any common thread running through the cuisines of places as far apart as Burma and Bali, a region with literally hundreds of different ethnic groups. And it's not just the people that are different. Southeast Asia is not all lush green paddy fields and waving coconut palms. Central Burma, for example, is downright arid, a dramatic contrast to the fertile corridor of the Mekong river, threading through Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia before sprawling in a maze of waterways in the Mekong delta of Vietnam. But despite variations caused by quirks of geography, most of Southeast Asia is hot and humid, so the basic foods are similar everywhere from Burma to Bali.
The way people put these ingredients together in the kitchen is partly the result of history. The region has seen the rise and fall of mighty Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms, leaving awe-inspiring remains such as stone stupas studding the plain of Pagan in Burma; astonishing temples, gateways and moats in Angkor, Cambodia; and exquisite Hindu remains in Java, Indonesia.
But history is about people as well as kingdoms and monuments, and it is the people who produce the cuisine. The mosaic of ethnic groups in some parts of Southeast Asia today is the result of different tribes from southern China moving gradually into Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand. More recent waves of immigration brought hundreds of thousands of Chinese to what was then Malaya, to Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand. Indians spread across the border into Burma, while thousands of southern Indians were brought as laborers to Malaya and Singapore. These immigrants — and also the period of colonialism, which only Thailand escaped — introduced new ingredients and cooking styles, helping shape the food of Southeast Asia to varying degrees.
If you were to use just one phrase to sum up Southeast Asian cuisine, it would be "hot, sour, sweet, and salty," a concept is surprisingly similar to the Chinese principle of "balancing the five flavors" (adding bitter to the four flavors of Southeast Asia). Sometimes this blending of hot, sour, sweet, and salty comes altogether in just one dish, or it is spread over a series of dishes sen/ed with rice. For example, order a simple bowl of noodle soup in Thailand, and you'll find everything you need to balance the flavors set out on the table before you: hot chilies, sour lime wedges or rice vinegar, sweet cane sugar, and salty fish sauce (and, for a textural contrast, coarsely crushed toasted peanuts).
There's no denying the Chinese influence, especially in the towns and cities. You'll see the conical Chinese wok in countless local kitchens, and find cooks following the Chinese technique of stir-frying. And just about everywhere, you'll find bean sprouts, bean curd, salted soybeans, noodles and — where fish sauce does not reign supreme — soy sauce, all introduced by the Chinese.
But despite these influences, Southeast Asian cuisine is unique. For me, the secret lies not just in the blending of hot, sour, sweet, and salty seasonings but in the incredibly fresh flavor and herbal aroma. Fresh seasonings, which are often crushed to a paste, include juicy purple shallots, garlic, ginger, chilies of different colors and intensities, blindingly yellow turmeric, and blush-pink galangal.
Herbs are used with almost wild abandon. The tang of citrus is personified in the intense flavors of lemon grass and kaffir lime leaf. Wild jungly odors come through in polygonum or Vietnamese mint, in saw-tooth coriander and rice paddy herb. Several varieties of basil hint of aniseed or other spicy savors, while the mint seems more pungent than any Western variety. There's also the distinctive fragrance of fresh coriander leaf, spring onions, and dill — and these are just the most commonly used herbs.
Although some dishes (especially in Thailand) are uncompromisingly hot, chilies are generally used sparingly in main dishes, appearing in a side-dish such as a sambal, as dried chili flakes or pickled, so you can adjust the heat to suit your taste.
Unlike Indian cuisine, Southeast Asian food doesn't normally contain large quantities of spices, with the exception of parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Burma. Elsewhere, cooks usually restrict themselves to a little freshly ground coriander, a pinch of turmeric, a stick of cinnamon and a whole star anise, or black pepper crushed with garlic and coriander root.
The appetite-sharpening sourness of many dishes has a wonderful fruitiness and fragrance so much richer than any vinegar; this comes from limes, tamarind juice, or wild acidic fruits, as well as tomatoes, star fruit, and pineapple. A perfect balance is often struck with palm sugar, fragrant as well as sweet, although regular cane sugar is also widely used.
There's no denying there's something fishy going on in Southeast Asian kitchens. Various forms of fermented fish are used throughout the region, yet amazingly, their alchemy is such that the resulting dishes don't actually taste offish. Rather, they have a saltiness, an aroma, and a complex note that is difficult to isolate. First and foremost is fish sauce, an amber, fragrant, and salty liquid made from fermented fish, while in Cambodia, Laos, and southern Thailand, the pungency of fermented fish paste is particularly appreciated. Another fishy essential used virtually all the way from Burma to Bali is dried shrimp paste, added sparingly but with great effect. Dried prawns also add a wonderful depth and texture to many dishes.
So what do cooks combine with all these herbs and seasonings? The staple food throughout most of the region is rice, eaten with cooked and raw vegetables, as well as unripe fruits which are eaten in salads or cooked. There's fish from the rivers, lakes, and sea, and to a lesser extent, poultry and meat. This is generally pork (in non-Muslim countries), water buffalo, or beef, although in isolated rural districts, wild game and all kinds of less conventional creatures are tossed into the cooking pot or onto the grill.
Fresh and dried noodles are popular. These are mostly made from rice flour, although wheat noodles and transparent jelly-like noodles made from mung beans are also found. Rice flour is also used to make both fresh and dried wrappers for food, particularly in Vietnam.
Along the coasts and in the more fertile regions, coconuts provide creamy rich milk for many soups, stews, curries, and desserts. If we leave aside coconut milk (which, sadly, is fat-saturated), most Southeast Asian food is healthy. Lots of vegetables are eaten, many of them raw. Grilling, steaming, and simmering are the most commonly used cooking methods, and although some food is deep-fried, it is much more common to find ingredients stir-fried in just a trace of oil.
Despite so many shared elements, every country in Southeast Asia has its own special ingredients and dishes. The food of Burma has been influenced by its powerful neighbors, India and China, as well by geography. The coastal people prefer fish in all its forms, while the Burmese living in the dry central plains around Mandalay and on the Shan plateau replace fermented fish and prawn pastes with distinctive fermented bean wafers or fermented lentil sauces.
The cuisine of Thailand is probably the most varied in Southeast Asia, ranging from the generally hot, sour food of the north, through the simple yet striking dishes of the poorer northeast, down to rich coconut-milk dishes in the south, with sophisticated royal cuisine found in the capital. Thai food is the most emphatically flavored of all Southeast Asian cuisines, almost always a little hotter, sourer, sweeter, and saltier, yet always perfectly balanced.
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were all part of what the French colonials referred to as Indochina, yet they are quite different. This is cleverly summed up by the local saying: "the Vietnamese plant rice, the Lao watch it grow and the Cambodians listen to it growing." One thing they share in common is excellent French bread, a most welcome colonial legacy
Vietnamese food is scintillating, sophisticated, and often deceptively simple, with a subtle balance of flavors. The Vietnamese have