The art of Laotion Food.


When you come into Laotian cuisine, there are many variety of dishes to be
offered.   People from different regions of Laos create and consume their
food in their own unique styles.  Thus, in Laos, food can be an expression
of one's root or identity.  Laotian food consists of variety of ingredients
- ranging from exotic vegetables to the juice of the beef intestine (young
cow poop or 'pia').  Yes..cow poop :) ..sure some may say we eat the
strangest thing, but these meals do conform to the four essential Food Group
(Well most of them anyway)

For instance, let's talk about Larp Pia, a favourite dish of Southern Laos.
This meal covers the basic Lao Food group, which is similar to North
American Food Group.  They are Raw Meat (Meat and sustitute), Vegetable (a
food group itself), Rice (Bread) and Lao spices.  So where is Milk or Dairy
Product group, you say.  Well, since most Asians are lacto intolerent, we
don't like to consume milk, butter or  cheese (Except for those that grow up
here).  However, we do use Padairk,  a sauce made from pickled fish, on most
of our dishes.  This can be considered the Dairy (or daily) Product of
Laotian  Food group.

Let's examine these food group in more details:

Meat:

In North America, most restaurants like to hang their meat for couple weeks
before they serve it.  But in Laos, we prefer fresh meat - right from the
butcher's hands.  In fact, it's traditional that we go out and kill a water
buffalo  or cow for special occassions.  Butchering the water buffalo on the
spot is an important part of the Laotian festivity.  We take pride in doing
such works and sometimes it requires skills to cut the buffalo in the proper
manners.    Since meat is so scarce in Laos, we do not waste any parts of
the buffalo at all - from head to tails.  Besides the the meat,  we take all
the internal organs , the head, tail, skin, etc..  Some people even take the
external organ.

For the Larp Pia, the beef should be thinly sliced into small pieces.  The
size of these pieces should be half inch square.  Boil the Pia (the juice
from the small intestine).  Let the hot pia cool off before mixing it witht
the beef.   When you drop the beef into the Pia, you will see it curl
because of the tensity of the sauce....hmm ahh what a sight.   Leave the
beef soaked in the pia sauce for few hours.  Other meat ingredients are
sliced liver(preferably raw), beef heary and tripe. Some people like beef
kidney too.

Lao Spice:

"Hey, your rice is burning", my caucasian friend yelled at me when he saw
the burnig smoke coming of the pan full of stickie rice.
"No, it suppose to burn", I replied.
"Is this why they call you rice burner?" he said jokingly.
That is, of course,  part of the making 'kout kouir', the ground roast rice.
Once the rice is 'burned' or roasted, let it cool off.  Then ground them.
In Laos, most people would use 'coke' (a hard bowl-shape pottery) and 'sack'
(a small log-shaped wood) to ground them.  This will require a bit of
strength.  But in modern world, we use an electric blender or grounder whick
only take seconds. Kout Kouir  is a very essential spice for the any kind of
Larp.  Another important spice is ground roast dried chilli.  It is
recommended that you roast or grill-fried the chilli outside of your house.
If you fry the dried chilli in the kitchen, people  in the house may suffer
from sneezing sympton.  Others Lao spices for the Larp Pia include ground Ka
(galanga), Houir si-kai (lemon grass), puck horm (cilentro, green onion,
minth, etc) and fishsauce.  Padairk can also fall into this category.

Rice:
The preparation of sticky or Laotian rice is different from your normal
steamed rice.  First you soaked the rice in water for few hours.    You must
have a special Laotian pot and wooden opened basket in order to steam the
rice.  Start boling a pot with one fourth full of water.   Put soaked rice
in a wooden basket.    Rinse the rice and let it drain for a few minute.
Put the basket on top of the boiling pot Let it steam for certain period of
time.  The length of time depends on the amount of rice in the basket.
Three quarters into cooking time, you have to turn over the rice. By this
time the rice should be sticky and form a ball.  The flipping or turning
over of the rice can be quite a task for beginners.  First you have to
contend with the hot basket.  Then you have to throw up the rice ball in
right way in order to flip it.  Sometimes the rice can end up on the floor
(This is speaking from experiece ).  Once the rice is ready, you have to
spread them, roll them into ball and put them in the special  wooden basket.

Vegetable:
Back in Laos there are many vegetables that go really good with Larp.  But
over here, it's hard to find them.  We can use other substitutes such as
lettuce, cucumber, radish, celeries, etc.

Once all the ingredients are ready, first drain out the beef from the pia
(don't drain it too much..you don't want to lose the taste of the cow poop).
Mix this meat with kout kouir, ground chiili, Ka and lemon grass, padairk
and other beef ingredients (liver, beef heart, tripes etc).  In the old
days, we use bare hands to mix them. But nowaday, for sanitary reason, it's
strongly recommended that you wear plastic gloves or sandwich bags.   Then
put in ther rest of the other spices.  The amount of spices to be added on
is up to the persons' tastes.  Once all the Laotian spice and the beef are
well mixed up to the tastes, it's reading to be served.

Laotion style of eating:

The Laotian eat our food in differen manners from others.  For larp pia, we
roll up the sticking rice into balls.  Then with your fingers, stick some
larp into the rice.   Gently put them into your mouth (ahh I ams so hungry
as I am writing this).  Or you can    use the vegetable to shovel up the
larp to you mouth.  Then eat the rice right after.   For better tastes,  a
shot of whisky or glass of beer will go nicely with the larp.  or you can
bite a piece of fresh chili with each ball of rice.  WEll i can't take this
anymore..i am going to home to make myself some larp... I hope this piece
has been informative to you all...