Anyone who has ever travelled to Thailand and hung out with a few locals for at least a day would have to agree that “If eating was an Olympic sport, Thailand would win Gold.”
No matter what it is that you are doing in Thailand there always seems to be food involved somewhere, somehow. Sometimes I think that the only time Thai people are not eating are when they are sleeping but then again I know what they are more then likely dreaming about….
Sporting events are just another excuse for a good old fashion cook up and my local Olympic Games were no exception. You can read about the ceremony and sport played on my previous blogs including the original, part two and part three by clicking on the links.
Seerung decided that she would get in on the act as well and join her sister selling food. She decided to cook up something that everyone would like but something no one had ever seen before. She decided to try oliebollen which is a traditional Dutch food. According to Wikipedia Oliebollen are a variety of dumpling made by using an ice-scooper or two spoons to scoop a certain amount of dough and dropping the dough into a deep fryer filled with hot oil. In this way, a sphere-shaped oliebol emerges.
The dough is made from flour, eggs, yeast, some salt, milk, baking powder and usually sultanas, currants, raisins and sometimes zest or succade.
I must have been too caught up with taking photos of all the activity on the school oval and basically forgot to take any photos of the food. I did manage one photo of some of the finished product. My wife and her sister cooked it over two days and it was a huge hit and every last one was sold.
My sister was selling food because she is lucky enough to have one of two shops in the village and the only one near the school where the Olympics were being held. In fact she is right next door and I watched a lot of the events while helping her out in her shop.
Apart from my wife doing the Oliebollen, my sister in law was selling soup, chicken cooked on coals (ไก่ย่าง / ไก่ปิ้ง) and assorted steamed meats along with the regular products she sells day to day like ice cream, soft drinks, alcohol and cigarettes.
This lot of chicken was not quite ready and everyone was waiting for their pieces to be cooked.
The ice drinks were a huge hit as well as a huge mark up for my sister in law! The best thing for me was that my kids were able to get involved and they had a blast helping out.
This very bad photo gives you a little idea how close her shop is to the school oval. It also shows how Jacob was constantly entertained by various customers.
Here he is making one of the local lasses go all ga-ga. He knows which person to turn on the charm with as this lady is the wife of the district head man. Good work Jacob!
Well, finally, that wraps up a very long and drawn out series on the local sports day that happened when we were visiting recently. Quite boring for many I am sure but I was really caught up in all the excitement watching the locals all come together to cheer on their kids and their village and of course eat!
