Food Preservation of the Southerners

Knowing food preservation is an indicator of the civilization because it is getting started in seeking and managing. Knowing the way to collect food replaced living from hand to mouth, to love a habitat and a thing, to teach each other are the cause of trade and other cultures later. Preservation Processes can help to keep food longer while maintaining a good quality, to have some kinds of food for eating out of season, and to preserve the natural resources also.

People in the South of Thailand have various ways to preserve food; fresh food, cooked food, meat dish and desserts, both main food and supplementary food.

Methods of Food Preservation

The southerners always use the following 5 methods of food preservation;
1. Controlling moisture and temperature
2. Drying
3. Being Smoked
4. Pickling
5. Sugar

1. Food preservation with controlling moisture and temperature

The southerners have known the food preservation with controlling moisture and temperature for a long time. It is the easiest and the most economical method. In addition, it helps to keep food in good condition the most. For example, burying “Look Nieng or Look Rieng” (local vegetables of the South) is in a pile of sand or chaff or ashes, which have enough moisture to grow so slowly in order to have a shoot without a leaf. “Look Nieng Poh or Look Rieng Poh” can be kept to eat freshly for a period of months. Preserving the paddy in the form of “Khang Lieng” is another method of the food preservation. A farmer cuts paddy heads with gae (a harvesting tool), tie up to be a sheaf and then pile it up on a barn in order. Straws at the paddy heads will help to ventilate the heat. The suitable moisture and temperature can maintain the quality of the paddy for many years.

The southerners have the method to preserve a boiled water bug for 2 – 5 months by keeping in the bucket of tablet salt, which has the stable moisture and temperature.

The above methods indicate that the southerners have known to preserve food with controlling moisture and temperature before storing in a refrigerator and a freezer for many hundred years.

2. Food preservation with drying

Food preservation with drying is the process, which reduces water activity sufficient to delay or prevent bacterial growth. It is the most economical method.

Before drying, it must be clean by washing. If they are vegetables, they are soft boiled with hot water in order to stop a chemical reaction. Some people like to be smoked fruits with light sulphur before drying because it helps to make colour and a good taste. Moreover, it can also prevent an acid taste and to be bitten by insects.

Food which the southerns like to preserve by drying are vegetables, fruits and meat, such as, chilli, pepper, some types of mushroom (Kraeng growing on the dead tamarind tree etc.) a dried betel nut (cut into pieces before drying) a dried banana (a ripe banana peeling and drying) Dialium cochinchinensis (peeled and dried) Som Khaek (a type of fruit is round, cutting into a thin piece and drying, used for cooking) the salty meat, the salty fish etc.

Drying food especially meat always uses the salt to prevent the food from spoiling and help the taste better, such as, a dried shell (a type of fresh water shell like a cockle but smaller, likes in a lake. It may be boiled with very hot salty water or mixed with the salt and dry. Mostly, people like the second way, so it is called hoy tak) a striped fish (a big snake-head fish cutting into the strips and drying) a dried fish (a salted fish) dried meat (salted meat) shrimp paste.

Some types are boiled thoroughly and dried, such as, dried shrimp, shrimp crisp rice, fish crisp rice etc.

3. Food preservation with being smoked

Being smoked does not only make food dried but also helps to keep longer because being smoked with a high temperature of more 25 – 45 degree Celsius will destroy bacterias. Smoke can change the smell and flavor of food.

Although being smoked is more difficult and wasteful than drying, it can do every season. For drying, when it is a rainy season without hot sun, food may not be dried and it is spoiled at last.

The 2 methods of being smoked by the heat in order to make food cooked are

* Smoked by open way, burn smoked materials, eg wood, spathe of coconut trees, saw dust, paddy husk, corncob etc , which gives the quantity of smoke, color and smell differently. And then, hang or make a stall to put food down above the bonfire. It is better if the smoke can spread easily. This method is used for a lof of food and not need much smoke.
* Smoked by close way, use a bucket or a big tin without a lid and a base to cover smoke, not spreading. It helps food get double smoke and be equal. The period of time is shorter. Howerer, food used by this method is not much a time. If need the big amount, maybe build a fume cupboard or a cottage for only being smoked.

Food is smoked to preserve for a long time, eg. a roasted ray, a roasted shrimp, a roasted banana.

The southerners have another way of being smoked by putting food down “Pra” above a stove. It makes food without dampness and helps to prevent an ant and a weevil, eg. chilli, garlic, shallot, salted fish, salted meat etc.

Some food look tasty and have good smell when they are smoked, eg. stirred durian, or food is wraped with leaves (banana leaves, leaves of a screw pine, spathes of a betel palm) and smoked lightly etc.

4. Food preservation with pickling

Food preservation with pickling has many different processes from the common one by changing itself to the complicated one by placing it or cooking it in a substance that inhibits or kills bacteria and other micro-organisms. These processes can preserve food longer and change the smell and flavor differently, becoming the new food with some nutrients, such as, protein, vitamin, mineral etc. Moreover, they can make the poison or raw food be eaten and decrease the sourness and bitter of some fruits to be tastier.

Sometimes, drying is not necessary for pickling. The southerners only mix salt for the fresh food or soak it in salt water and then keep in the close place which is called “Aub”, for examples, making salted mackerels, Jing Jung (a type of small fish, called “Look Mei or Mli”, soaks in salt water), salted crab.

Preserving food by pickling often uses the chemical reaction, for examples, preserving thick sweet liquid (e.g. sugar from a fan-palm and boiled) for use all the year will use scraps of Kiem wood which is very harsh in order to stop the sour flavor or greatly slow down spoilage.

Pickling may decrease the value of nutrition in some food and increase in the others more because it makes some useful bacteria which are in air, around us or at the skin of fruits grow fastly as well as stops the growth of the other bacteria which spoil food. The right process of pickling can change the condition and element of food, going with food preservation.

The southerners have various methods of food preservation by pickling. For examples, cooking Nang (mix the salt with the sugar for pork, beef, buffalo, fish, added up banana stalk or bamboo shoot and then pickle them about 6 – 7 days, ready for cooking food) Paeng Daeng (mix the clean fish with the salt, sugar and boiled sticky rice and then pickle about 10 – 15 days) Bo Do and Kung Som (sour shrimps) etc.

Some substances that the southerners like to fill in for stimulating the reaction of pickling are salt (for making fish sauce or shrimp paste etc.) sugar (for making Nang or sour meat etc.) water from washing rice (for pickling vegetables etc.) cooked rice (for making Paeng Daeng etc.). Sometimes they add some types of bacteria in, for examples, making fish sauce, salted soya beans, pickle bean curd etc.

The well – know pickled products are Sa – tau (a local vegetable) salted eggs Chaiya (Chaiya district, Suratthani Province) pickle bean curd (Mueng district, Songkhla Province) Bo Do (Yaring district, Pattani Province) salted mackerels and salted crabs (Pak Panang distric, Nakonsithammarat Province) shrimp paste (Ranong, Pang-Nga, Chumporn etc.) and so on.

5. Food preservation with sugar

The preservation being maintained by the sugar content can be classified in 3 methods as following,

The first method is a simple form, only boiling sugar to almost dry. The sweet liquid is absorbed into the skin of preserved products and the rest is used to coat on them again, such as, bananas, sakes, fruits of the sugar palm, jackfruits etc. Another way is to boil continuously until the sugar is very sticky and dry. When colder, it becomes solid.

The second method is always used for bitter or very sour fruits. Before soaked in sugary water, they are made to be flavorless by salt water or clear lime water or alum etc.. And then, add syrub in order to be sweet enough to eat, such as, mangoes in syrub.

The third method is to be sugar-coated, the preserved products must be cooked. The sugar is boiled until dry and solid. The southerners like to fill some lard in the syrub in order to look delicious more. This method is called “La Nam Pheung” or “La Nam Taan”, such as, sugar-coated crisp rice etc.

It is noticed that the food preservation of the southerners by the above methods, although they know how to do and have done for a long time, they only use for eating in household, not developing in the process for trade or being a small industry. Therefore, These methods can not help to solve a problem or increase more income for agriculturists.