Making "Som Tam" (Spicy Papaya Salad)

Well, folks, we met again for Mom's group yesterday and this week the ladies decided we were going to make "SomTam" or Spicy Papaya Salad for you English speakers. They also brought the goods to make Khanom Jiin with Kaeng Khiaw Waan (noodles much like spaghetti with Green Chicken Curry). It was a lot of fun but I was sad they didn't let me help a whole lot. These women just went to town chopping and cutting and frying and cooking and beating. It was SOOOO good (sorry, Kim and Rhianna, I don't want to make you miss this good food too much but it was really good!).
So, how does one go about making Spicy Papaya salad? Well, it takes a lot of ingredients that might seem weird to combine to a American but they all come together in this Thai style "salad" that once you taste it you crave for more and more and more...right Mom Henry?! First, you need an unripened papaya. If you were thinking ripened papaya...you thought wrong! And, then you peel the skin off of the papaya. You then cut it with a knife about a million times and then scrape the part you've cut into a bowl (see the 1st picture with P'Bee...who is expecting her second baby!!).











Some other ingredients you need are tomotoes and limes (pictured to the left). The small eggplants you see pictured are for the Green Curry.





You also need some peppers. The small bird peppers in the picture were for the salad...and the crabs. =) There are three ways to eat som tam (more really, but basically, three). There is Isaan style (Isaan is the NE part of Thailand where the salad originates from) and they add crabs to their som tam. Then there's Thai style and they add dried baby shrimps (sorry, no pic of those) and there's farang style...sans seafood of any kind! In som tam they also add garlic, fish sauce, sugar, MSG (not always) and another paste of something that I couldn't really get the low down on WHAT it was exactly. The bird peppers are truly what make it spicy. And, in our group yesterday we had from three peppers to 10!!! There was only one woman in our group who likes it that hot...the rest are 3 or even 5. You also throw in a healthy dose of peanuts and beans and then you beat it all together in the crock...as demonstrated below by my friend, Naa. Usually, you eat this dish with sticky rice and fried chicken or fish...and that is just what we did! Mmmmm...so good!


I also learned another Thai superstition yesterday as we sat around and ate. One woman (the one who likes 10 pepper in her salad) is one of nine children! She is the only girl. She is GREAT. I love her...she's so easy to talk to and nothing, and I do mean, nothing, phases her. She is also the second to youngest (I think...but she might even be the youngest). So, she was telling us this story. Her family had all boys (before her, obviously) but their next door neighbor's had all girls. So, the families exchanged crocks and low and behold our friend's family had her and the neighbor's family had a boy! And, they truly believe it's because they exchanged crocks! Pretty funny. They asked if Americans have superstitions like that and I said yes, but I couldn't think of any...can any of you think of things Americans would do in a situation like that? Or any other supersitions?