On The Road: Chiang Mai

This multicultural city, in Thailand’s mountainous north, showcases the region’s distinctive cooking style in dishes such as sesame soft-shell crab tempura and fiery roast duck curry

- Lucy Gillmore

Back in the 13th century Chiang Mai was the capital of the Lanna Kingdom. Sandwiched between Burma to the west, Siam to the south, China to the north and Laos to the east, it was a tropical – and fertile – independent mountain state. Over the centuries this ancient kingdom, with its Buddhist temples, towering teak forests and verdant vegetation, was fought over, invaded and eventually swallowed by Siam, which, in the middle of the 20th century, became Thailand. Today, what was once a remote mountain kingdom is, less romantically, the northern corner of Thailand. 

Some things don’t change. Lanna means ‘land of a million paddy fields’ and the landscape is still swathed in a shimmering shawl of emerald green while, in the markets, stalls are stacked with sacks of rice. Sticky rice, or khao niaow, is to be pinched between your fingers and eaten with nam prik – spicy dipping sauces. 

Unsurprisingly, Lanna cuisine is a melting pot of flavours. The typical central and southern Thai staples of coconut milk and palm sugar were not readily available in the highlands. Instead the larder was stocked with roots and shoots, snakes, wild game and grubs from the jungle, the signature flavours sour and earthy. 

Even the rice here dances to its own tune. “Sticky rice is soaked overnight then cooked in steam, not water,” chef Thiwawan – “call me Yiu” – tells me as we meander around the smart San Sai market. The clear white grains are what we would think of as normal rice, she explains; the short, fat, creamy grains are sticky rice. “You can also get black sticky rice. There are more vitamins in the black shell, but not everyone likes the crunchy texture.”