Whenever I travel to the south of Thailand I always enjoy myself immensely because the food in the south is very special. I have written countless times of the many delicacies that await your palate. I have also mentioned that the food in the south corresponds to the temperament of the people there. The food there is hot, spicy, bold and definitely have lots of character.

            The people there are the same, they speak fast, they are hot-tempered, very sincere. If they love you they will love you for life. If they hate you, you will also have an enemy for life. I love the south! It reminds me of American westerns. It’s rough and raw but full of heart and very little pretension.

            I arrived in Had Yai a few months ago and on the way out of the airport on the left-hand side of the road, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Khun Tong Garden. The name means “Gold Mine Garden”. I guess the food there was so good and business is brisk that the restaurant becomes a gold mine! Well, to be quite honest the food here is very good and definitely local fare. You have to be prepared to eat like the locals. There is the standard Khanon Jean with various curry toppings. Khanon Jean is the white fermented sticky rice noodle served with different kinds of curry and lots of fresh vegetables to be eaten with the noodles to cool you down. The curries range from The ordinary green curry to the more exotic Gang Tai Pla (fish kidney curry). All are to be eaten poured over the noodles and munch the various vegetables with it.

            You can also order other local southern dishes to try with lots of rice. There is the deep-fried fish marinated in fresh tumeric and other herbs. Crispy chicken bits tossed with finely chiffonade lemon grass and toasted cashew nuts salad. Spicy red ant egg salad is also another dish for acquired taste. I think a sour and slightly spicy soup of tender spear ribs and sour Chamuang leaves would go down better for most of my readers.

            There is the ever popular and familiar sour curry, which in the south they call Gang Som but in the central plains they are called Gang leung which means yellow curry. The yellow color in this curry is derived from fresh tumeric. They use lots of tumeric in southern cuisine as well as for medicinal purposes. And of course, I cannot come to the south and eat southern food without mentioning Sator the ever popular and equally much hated Sator or stinkbean. I am going to devote the rest of this column on Sator, which to my surprise became a favorite vegetable of my friends from America.

            This bean, Sator has been grown in the south of Thailand since time immemorial. You either like it or hate it. There is no middle ground. Sators are the seeds from the pod of an evergreen tree. The tips of the leaves are also eaten accompanying “ nam prik”. You know, nam prik the shrimp paste dip which in my early years was one of the main dishes in every meal. There is a saying in Thai that if your husband had a mistress, he was eating nam prik from another pestle and mortar! Your wife usually makes nam prik for you every day in the old pestle and mortar at home! Anyway, nam prik old or new pestle and mortar aside, sator is usually eaten with nam prik. The reason why you either love or hate it is probably the smell of the sator.

            The sator seed, to some, has an unpleasant smell. It smells a little like toasted or baked cheese and most people would avoid being in confined space with others for fear of your bad breath. It also has wonderful medicinal properties. People like myself who suffers from diabetes can eat a lot of sator and it will help the sugar level in your blood. It also relieves you of gaseous stomach and helps your digestive systems. May be it is this particular quality of the sator that people are afraid to be in confined spaces with others! If you are afraid to eat it for fear of the smell, just grill it over charcoal before peeling the seeds out. By cooking it first some of the odor will diminish, leaving just a hint of that wonderful aroma. Sator can be eaten raw, cooked to accompany nam prik, or used as vegetables in a main dish like stir-fry sator with shrimp paste and shrimp or pork.

            For those of you who want to try sator you will have to go to a Southern Thai restaurant and order nam prik with fresh or grilled sator or sator pad goong lae kapi. If you want to do it at home, it is quite easy. Go to your super market and ask for sator either already seeded for you are you can buy the whole pod and seed it your self. After you get the seeds, there is a slippery outer skin covering the seed. Just take the tip of a knife and cut through it and peel off the skin.

            If you ate it with that skin, the sator will taste bitter not crunchy and nutty as it should be. In a pestle and mortar, pond together yellow peppers, garlic and good quality shrimp paste and set aside. You will need about one to one and a half heaping table spoonful of this paste for about 250 grams of food put in the pan. Sliced pork or peeled shrimp, 150 grams. Put a wok on the stove and add vegetable oil. Once hot add the shrimp paste that have been pounded. Stir until the paste is cooked out and becomes very aromatic. If using pork add the pork first stir-fry until the pork is almost done then add the sator and toss until cooked. (about 1 to 1.5 minutes).

            Season the dish with palm sugar and fish sauce. The dish should taste salty and a little sweet with a tough of heat from the yellow peppers in the paste. Remember that the shrimp paste is usually already salty, so before seasoning taste first. If you were using shrimps in this dish, add the sator first because the sator takes longer to cook than the shrimps. There are many other ways of using sator in many dishes but my space is limited. Next time I will write about Nam Prik so you ladies can keep your husband at home!