Dear Asian Soup

To the one that got away,

Occasionally crooking my head around the airport, I catch myself looking for you. Wanting to see you on a poster, in a restaurant, somewhere just waiting for me. It was a holiday fling, hot and sour. A torrent of aromatics and humidity that brushed against me like a rotating fan: this lingering waft that returned as soon as it was missed. 

It shouldn’t have left a lingering heat on my lips and yet it remains. From when I felt the steam blushing my cheeks, to when I stared at the ceiling in my hotel room catching my breath, to when I was packing my suitcase and felt that clawing crave after my final breakfast in Thailand. 

I miss you already. 

My longing for something that became a constant comfort appeared in front of me at the hotel restaurant my Dad and I frequented during our time in Bangkok. It was you. This blessed image of something I deeply longed for and wanted upon request by the staff. The brewing anticipation of your arrival became all the more steamy when your bowl was placed on the table. 

Smaller than what I was used to back home, but satisfying. Refreshing, exciting, invigorating. 

The pieces of chicken were soft and tender pecks of flavour, every bite dripped with juicy broth and a delectable chew. Whole spices remained in the bowl, inviting a more delicate eating progress, ensuring that I swayed through the broth with acute accuracy while scooping a portion of chicken and broth, rather than a shard of softened lemongrass.  The whole spices meant that the aroma didn’t just disappear in the heated wisps above the bowl, but lingered and stewed inside the broth as well. This perfumed experience reminded me of walking through a boutique, but without the unpleasant pinch and bite of cologne that was sprayed too close. 

I can not help but believe that the light coconut broth circulating every morsel and component transformed the lemongrass-forward fragrance from floral to fresh. It was light and bouncy the same way a sweat-slicked head of blonde European with elephant-patterned trousers and wooden beaded bracelets would saunter into the hotel. They knew their place and embraced it. 

You were my tourist experience, and I’ll never forget it. I hope to return to you someday, perhaps alone this time.

Many memories and safe travels x

Tom Kha Gai (or Tom Kha Gai) is known as a “hot and sour soup with chicken and coconut milk popular in Thai and Laotian cuisine, the name of the dish quite literally translates into cooked chicken galangal (tom = cooked, kha = galangal, gai = chicken).” (Mukherjee, 2020) 

My first experience having this dish was in my city’s local market hall. Surrounded by tables and high chairs was a Thai restaurant, one of the few places where I live that were as close to having this region’s cuisine without paying a premium – well, even more premium considering the state of prices in the United Kingdom. Served with a plate of domed rice, I had a large ramen-sized bowl of Tom Kha Gai to myself and it was the taste of bliss. 

According to Raj Mukherjee, a Thai recipe book from 1890 is possibly the earliest record for a variant of Tom Kha Gai; a coconut milk-based curry with duck as the protein of choice and young galangal – it was called Tom Kha Pet (2020). An additional difference to the contemporary version of the soup was a chilli relish topping. 

In terms of the historic context that informs the background and flavor profile of this dish, Mukherjee claims that,

“The book was published just three years before the 1893 Franco-Siamese war which resulted in Bangkok ceding territory east of the Mekong River to Paris. As a result, French Indochina, already consisting of much of modern day Vietnam and Cambodia, expanded significantly westward to include what is modern day Laos” (2020). 

When I visited my Dad and traveled to Bangkok with him, I had the opportunity to experience how Thai hospitality can bridge their cuisine from local street food drenched in history and public convenience to luxe hot-spots authentically curated for the contemporary European Elephant-trousered tourist. 

Staying in a hotel I purely describe as ‘swank’ based on it’s ground floor pool guarded by faux foliage, I indulged in my Dad’s desires to keep cool in the hotel restaurant by drinking fresh coconuts with spoons to scoop the meat and a healthy helping of plates and bowls of food made by their kitchen. One of their dishes I yearned to try for myself was Tom Kha Gai – even if it wasn’t the same as one from a local vendor. Although I indulged in something new to my palette in its native country, I also craved that familiar plate of domed rice found in a market. 

To my third wheel,

Bouncing my knee on the support bar of the stool, unrhythmically knocking it against one of the metal legs, it was risky for me to act like I was more excited for their return rather than my boyfriend’s visit, to be waiting with such bated breath and empty stomach, but you make me feel this way. 

The way your presence immerses such awe and delight wherever I sit and wait for your arrival. The way a plain white ramen bowl erupts with coconut-kissed steam and a domed pillow of rice. I could inhale you and never feel full. In full transparency, I could do without the tomatoes. I’ve always found the texture of fresh tomatoes as unpleasant in my mouth as a surprise tongue. I push away these moments that sensorially spook me, but all is forgiven by the unmistakable excitement when I swerve through the broth with my spoon and gather portions of tender bamboo and delicate chicken more than make up for those blustery-red flaws. 

It’s absolutely stupid and reckless, insane even. A cast-off of emotions into the water and hoping they wouldn’t sink - or worse, taken within nothing left behind. I didn’t want this to be the way I evoked a Hallmark movie. 

I used to invest so much time and indifference to romcom movies that brought the leading woman’s boyfriend back into the second to third act to reel in the emotional conflict. To see her hug him in a neck-clutching grasp to suggest how much she missed him, to then get a half-second glance that felt more like a lifetime towards someone she’s become more than friends with on her humble self-discovering travels. 

I used to think I would never be in that situation, trying to play cool introducing my partner to my ‘something-more’ and hope none of the simmering tension could be felt by someone that didn’t realise their affection wasn’t invited. 

Yet here I was, sitting at the restaurant in the market and making sure my attention didn’t linger too long with you, to make sure I wasn’t swallowed whole by your magnetic presence, to make sure I didn’t leave him third-wheeling us. 

I was in need, to crave, to devour, to slurp, something unfamiliarly comforting. And that was you. Our encounters are always so warm, so soothing, so charged, and I’m sorry I haven’t visited as often as I would have liked. I love seeing you at the Thai food store in the market, I really do. You settle the noise into a silvery hum that no other meal in the in there has provided me. 

I’m sorry for the months of no contact, I don’t know when I’ll return again. But I hope it will have that same Hallmark movie magic. I can’t wait to see you someday again, this time alone. 

Look out for me, 

Hannah.

The differences in eating experiences from a city in Thailand back to a city in England were like going on dates with two cousins on separate occasions, times and geographic contexts. Both are from the same family, but the shared features are in uneven quantities and their differing features are of equal quality. These aspects meant that any love letter I wrote to these two versions of Tom Kha Gai were not only honest, but craving another slurp from both bowls. 

To the new kid on the block and the boy next door, 

Let’s have dinner again. X’s and bowls, 

Hannah xoxo

Bibliography

https://getensembl.com/blogs/stories/the-borderless-world-of-tom-kha-gai 

Author: Hannah Govan

Editors: Luna Y., Alisha B.

Image source: George Pagan III, Unsplash