Market Friday: searching for traditional Thai sweets.

9 months ago

I had to take my solar lights to be repaired at the weekend market in the old part of Bangkok. On the way back, I needed to have my afternoon snacks somewhere nearby so that I could just walk there. So, I took a short walk to an the Old Siam Plaza which was the only old fashion shopping center which has been popular among our parents’ generation. Most of the regular customers were middle age and elderly people.

I used to visit this place many years ago with my old friends. The place looked very old and unattractive to me so I completely forgot about this place. But recently the shopping complex had been renovated and with new food court and specialised merchandise. Nowadays this is the only shopping mall where you could buy guns, bullets along side diamonds and jewelries, as well as Thai silk and traditional Thai food and sweets.

The gun and jewelry shops are on the ground floor with views of the neon road. The biggest collection of Thai silk, laced and silk clothes could be found on the first floor. This place is famous for having the best collections of hand guns and rifles. My father used to have two very long and heavy rifles while my uncle used to show me a big gun. This place reminded me of my experiences with these old guns as a youngster. Luckily, no harm was done while I quietly took these guns for an examination. But the grownups had the shock of their lives and yelled at me like crazy. When I got older, all my close friends had guns and we went to practice shooting at the army barrack. I had promised my parents not to own a gun years ago, so I never bought a gun.

It’s rather strategic to have gun shops closeby diamond shops so robbers would be quite reluctant to stage a robbery. This shopping center reminded me of the coloutful lifestyles of the 60’s. The accessories for a glamorous evening out at restaurants or night clubs wouldn’t be possible without having shoes, hand bags and costume jewelries from this shopping center. I was dazzled by the beautiful designs of all these old fashioned items and hand made merchandise. I could recall that my parents had special bowling shoes and personalised bowling balls made for them. It was very fashionable to go bowling during weekends where everyone would be looking very much like Americans in the sixties films. The hairdos of people also imitated American styles as shown in films and magazines.

This shopping center was like a trip back to the good old days when my parents were very young and our country was full of Americans and their cultural items. Big American cars were quite grand to me as a kid as it was very big, quiet and comfortable. People would go nightclubbing with live band music and big dancing floor. We were too young to be allowed to go with our parents but they would tell us about the excitement and show us how to dance. Some people would have special dancing shoes made to order and some would take dancing lessons. My parents took lessons on ballroom dancing too.

On the first floor, various kinds of silk fabrics from different parts of Thailand could be found. I had a glimpse of the shop windows but I would need more time for my survey later. I could see several small shops on the ground floor selling ready made dresses and clothes with glittering accessories. I could hardly find anything suitable for teenagers and young people there. Perhaps only well to do middle age customers could afford to buy these expensive items.

Having walking around reminiscing about the good old day, I began to feel hungry but I couldn’t find the Thai food and sweets section. I had to ask some shop assistant for direction to the find those sweet shops. The renovated food court has become fully air conditioned which made it very pleasant. This food court specialised in traditional and authentic Thai food and sweets. Most of the vendors have been here for over twenty to thirty years. That’s probably why they could have very strong fan clubs. Some Thai customers would order thirty boxes of Thai sweets for bring back overseas, they had settled down overseas with foreign husbands. So, I couldn’t taste some Thai sweets as they were sold out.

I walked around, up and down, the food court taking photos and making notes of things I wanted to buy for myself. My first stop was having a bowl of Thai sweet with coconut cream. The price had gone up six folds since my childhood days. I used to eat two to three bowls at one sitting as a kid. But I could only finish one bowl nowadays, it was very difficult to choose just one kind of sweet. But I bought two more sweets for taking away. I ought to learn to make these traditional sweets one day.

Lots of snacks were also available for a quick meal but I could hardly find any vegetarian snacks. There was a vendor selling fried tofu and deep fried vegetarian snacks. But these were quite expensive for me. I enjoyed observing the vendor making ‘golden threads’ which was originally a Portuguese sweet. The wife of a missionary during the Reign of King Narai, brought several Portuguese sweets to Siam. Thai custard and egg cakes were originally from Portuguese recipes. The Portuguese were the first group of foreigners to have trading agreements with the Siamese. Old Portuguese houses and churches could be found in various places in the country, including old remains of a Portuguese village.

The atmosphere inside the Old Siam was a bit surreal to me. I couldn’t imagine that there were still vendors selling old fashion clothes and accessories. It seemed there was still a large group of older people who were still belonging to the old era of glamours and ‘decadence’. Those were the days of easy money, lots of parties and big cars, big hairdos and loud colour clothes. I wished we could all went back to the old reality: no wars and no struggles, smiling faces and materialistic progress everywhere.

Some of the Thai sweets were originated during the reign of King Rama V. These were very intricate sweets in small bite sizes with jasmine fragrance or perfumed candle. The recipes were often kept as secrets and handed down to younger generations of families. I seemed to be fond of these sweets but my purse told me to buy only two boxes instead of six varieties. One day when BTC and silver prices went through the roof, I would probably stuff myself with these sweets all day long!

I was glad to be moderate on buying Thai sweets. I raided my fridge every fifteen minutes until all the sweets were gone. Had I bought too many boxes of sweets, my sugar level would sky rocket in one day. That’s the downside of Thai sweets: once smitten it’s hard to let go. I promised myself to get back to the Old Siam Plaza again to survey the other three floors and take some photos. Meanwhile I have to live with the memories of sweets and my favourite Thai snacks and try to work harder so I would deserve many more good outings in the future.