desserts.

Okay, I promise that serious and spiritual posts are on their way... (I have so much I am processing and will share soon) but as I just posted about food yesterday, the irony of what happened in class today was too good to pass up! So consider this "part ii: desserts"

The Backstory: Last week I had all my students fill out a short survey about themselves. One of the questions was, "What is your favorite type of dessert?" As many all of my students are Thai, they prefer Thai desserts over brownies, ice cream and chocolate chip cookies (I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that anything could be preferable to home-made cookies!). Last Wednesday we spent a decent amount of class-time discussing what exactly these "Thai desserts" were. I am familiar with the fact that Thai folks think waffles, pancakes, corn and toast are dessert (see picture below of some "Thai toast" we ordered at the mall this past weekend!)... however, I had not heard of a lot of the desserts my students mentioned.

[top: thai custard toast, middle: strawberry jam toast, bottom: condensed milk toast] 

The Main Story: In order to educate me, two of my students came to class today loaded with desserts. Combined, there were 11 different desserts. I was so surprised that they remembered our conversation and brought back a buffet of assorted treats for me to try. Most of them are made from egg yolks... which is why they are the same yellow color (they all taste a little different, though). I felt pretty brave trying so many new foods in one sitting! I did wait to look up their ingredients until afterwards (I thought it was better that way!). All my students were weighing in on which ones were their favorite-- and also on how much I would weigh if I ate them all!! Haha. One of my students told me I should plan to run 30 minutes for each one. When he saw the whole bag, he amended his comment and said I should probably just plan on running all day! I told him to have no fear; I am a big fan of sharing... :) Here is a peek inside my bag of goodies.

[name: thong yod / egg yolk and thong yod flour / bad for folks with high blood pressure!]

[name: khanom / brown=coffee, pink=strawberry, green=thai custard(?), blue=unknown / similar to jell-o, but more solid]

[I'm not sure about the name of this one... but it seemed to be egg yolk with some kind of corn (?) filling]

[name: sang kaya fug tong / pumpkin filled with egg custard / think- pumpkin pie]

[name: foithong / egg yolk boiled in perfumed water and sugar]

[left: pumpkin and coconut milk / right: black beans in coconut milk]

[name: thongyib / duck egg yolks... sugar... made into a flower somehow!]

The Moral: Thai desserts are very different than American desserts! It is hard to describe them, because the flavors are so different from what we eat in America. The closest I get to eating eggs in America is scrambled with salt. I've never eaten sweetened yolk... at least until now! One of the websites I found when searching for the desserts' ingredients had a whole host of other Thai desserts with pictures. If you are curious, you can click here to view more.

In Conclusion: I think that this deserves a little reciprocation... I just need to decide what American dessert(s) would be best to make and to share with my class. Lorena has a recipe for some delicious cinnamon rolls, and brownies and/or cookies are always a winner... Hmmm. I'm open to suggestions! Thoughts? Good recipes?

The End (...of food topics for the moment!)