Lao cuisine

Lao cuisine or Laotian cuisine (Lao: ອາຫານລາວ, pronounced [ʔàː.hǎːn láːw], RTGS: ahan lao) is the national cuisine of Laos.
The staple food of the Lao is sticky rice (Lao: ເຂົ້າໜຽວ, khao niao, [kʰȁw nǐaw]). Laos has the highest sticky rice consumption per-capita in the world with an average of 171 kilograms (377 lb) of sticky rice consumed annually per person. Sticky rice is deeply ingrained in the culture, religious tradition, and national identity of Laos. It is a common belief within the Lao community that no matter where they are in the world, sticky rice will always be the glue that holds the Lao communities together, connecting them to their culture and to Laos. Affinity for sticky rice is considered the essence of what it means to be Lao. Often the Lao will refer to themselves as luk khao niao (Lao: ລູກເຂົ້າໜຽວ, [lùːk kʰȁw nǐaw]), which can be translated as 'children or descendants of sticky rice'.
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has described Laos as a "collector's paradise". Laos has the highest degrees of biodiversity of sticky rice in the world. As of 2013, approximately 6,530 glutinous rice varieties were collected from five continents (Asia, South America, North America, Europe and Africa) where glutinous rice are grown for preservation at the International Rice Genebank (IRGC). The IRRI gathered more than 13,500 samples and 3,200 varieties of glutinous rice from Laos.
The trifecta of Laos' national cuisine are sticky rice, larb, and green papaya salad (Lao: ຕຳໝາກຫຸ່ງ, tam mak hung). The most famous Lao dish is larb (Lao: ລາບ, [lâːp]; sometimes also spelled laab or laap), a spicy mixture of marinated meat or fish that is sometimes raw (prepared like ceviche) with a variable combination of herbs, greens, and spices.
Lao cuisine has many regional variations, corresponding in part to the fresh foods local to each region. A French legacy is still evident in the capital city, Vientiane, where baguettes (Lao: ເຂົ້າຈີ່, [kʰȁw tɕīː]) are sold on the street and French restaurants are common and popular, which were first introduced when Laos was a part of French Indochina.
The Lao originally came from a northern region that is now part of China. As they moved south they brought their traditions with them. Due to historical Lao migrations from Laos into neighboring regions, Lao cuisine has influenced the mainly Lao-populated region of Northeastern Thailand, and Lao foods were also introduced to Cambodia and Northern Thailand where the Lao have migrated.
Like most Southeast Asian nations, Laos has been heavily influenced by Indian and Chinese culture. From time immemorial, Lao people traded directly with ancient China. It was the Indianization of Laos, however, that has had the most impact. The spread of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam into Southeast Asia during this period took with it Indian traditions and culture to what are now Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia and Laos where it took roots and continues to flourish to this day. It is also during this time that Buddhist monks introduced traditional Indian spices, curry, and coconut milk to Laos. However, unlike most of its neighbours, Lao people's affinity for glutinous or sticky rice and Lao cuisine's heavy focus on sticky rice meant that coconut milk and noodles never played a significant role in Lao cuisine. Instead, coconut milk, curry and noodles are limited to a few Laotian soups, noodle dishes and sticky rice-based desserts.
With the Columbian exchange, non-native crops—such as tomato, papaya, sweetcorn, pineapple, and chili peppers—were introduced to Southeast Asia probably through the various sea ports of modern-day Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam via the Philippines and Malacca. Through trades with the Portuguese and other Europeans, acceptance and cultivation of non-native crops and ingredients quickly spread throughout Southeast Asia.
By the mid-1500s, Europeans were exploring and trading with mainland Southeast Asia, reaching as far as Vientiane and Luang Prabang. Some of the more notable Europeans who had travelled there or wrote extensively about their experiences were Fernão Mendes Pinto (1542-1545), Diogo Veloso and Blas Ruiz (1596), Geebard van Wusthof (1641), Giovanni Filippo de Marini (1642-1648), Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix (1830), and Henri Mouhot (1861).
Simon de la Loubère (1642-1729) observed that the cultivation of the papaya was already widespread in Siam around the early-1700s and by the time Pallegoix arrived as missionary to Bangkok, the papaya and chili peppers was already fully integrated in the Lao territory, dependencies and the Southeast Asian food culture as a whole.
French explorer Mouhot, during his trip to Luang Prabang, noted that the Laotians adored chili peppers.
In his book Culture and Customs of Laos, Arne Kislenko noted the following about Lao cuisine:
According to the cultural anthropologist Penny Van Esterik, during the 1950s and 1960s, Lao food was little known by the central Thais and could be found only where there were gatherings of Lao or northeasterners:
At the conclusion of the Vietnam War, between 1975 and 1995, it was estimated that approximately 200,000 Lao refugees crossed the Mekong River into Thailand. Most stayed in the refugee camps while others moved to Bangkok looking for work.
The opening of the Mittraphap Road and the northeastern railway connecting central Thailand to its northern provinces created a gateway for one of Thailand's biggest inter-regional migrations during the economic boom of the 1980s, as demand for labour increased. It was estimated that between 1980 and 1990, about 1.1 million northeasterners moved from the northeast to central Thailand and Bangkok. This, in turn, helped popularize and create an unprecedented demand for Lao food outside of Laos and the northeast.
Van Esterik also noted that, "[i]n attempting to include northeastern food in a standardized national cuisine, middle-class Bangkok selected and modified the taste of a few dishes—grilled chicken, somtam, laab—by reducing the chili peppers and increasing the sugar, and ignored other dishes such as fermented fish and insects". According to Professor Sirijit Sunanta, these dishes were then represented as Thai food when presented to the world.
Although more ethnic Lao live in Thailand than in Laos and Lao cuisine is key to popularising Thai food abroad, the word "Lao" is hardly mentioned. This is perhaps due to forced Thaification, an official attempt to promote national unity and "Thainess", in which any mention of "Lao" and other non-Thai descriptors were removed and replaced with "northeastern Thai" or "Isan".
Consequently, Thaification has led to social discrimination against northeasterners, and the word "Lao" became a derogatory term. Being "Lao" was stigmatized as being uneducated and backward, causing many northeasterners to be ashamed to be known as Lao. However, there is a sense of resurgence and pride in Lao identity as it loses its stigma, particularly among the Isan youth.
In the West, even with sizable expatriate communities, Lao cuisine is still virtually unknown, even though much of what is served in Thai restaurants is likely to be Lao or Lao-owned. Unbeknownst to most people, when they eat their favourite som tam, larb, and sticky rice at their favourite Thai or northeastern Thai (Isan) restaurants they are actually eating the Thai versions of traditional Lao food. This accidental reinforcement of Thaification by expatriate Lao communities and Lao restaurateurs is observed by Malaphone Phommasa and Celestine Detvongsa in their article "Lao American Ethnic Economy":
One of the earliest Thai restaurants to open in North America was by Keo Sananikone, a Lao refugee and early pioneer of Thai food in the US. In 1977, Keo opened a series of Thai restaurants starting with Mekong, Keo's, and Mekong II in Hawaii, which became a hot spot for the Hollywood crowd. Keo later wrote an internationally best-selling Thai cookbook, Keo's Thai Cuisine, in 1985. Keo explains the reason for opening Thai as opposed to Lao restaurants: "I felt that Laotian food would not have been successful in America at that time. Laotian food is very basic and simple, and Thai food is very exotic and colourful."
Although Laos is landlocked, different types of fish are consumed, especially freshwater ones.
Notable Lao fish dishes include:
Fruits in Laos include watermelon, pineapple, sugar apple, (custard apple or sweetsop), longan, litchi, Asian pear, mango, rose apple (water apple), banana, jackfruit, rambutan, young coconut, orange, sweet tamarind, papaya, durian, sugarcane, pomelo, sapodilla, guava, star apple, mangosteen, melon, santol, langsat, grapes, corossolier (soursop), mak yom, and mak num nom.
The typical Lao stove, or brazier, is called a tao-lo and is fueled by charcoal. It is shaped like a bucket, with room for a single pot or pan to sit on top. The wok, maw khang in Lao, is used for frying and stir frying. Sticky rice is steamed inside of a bamboo basket, a huad, which sits on top of a pot, which is called the maw nung.
A large, deep mortar called a khok is used for pounding tam mak hoong and other foods. It is indispensable in the Lao kitchen.
Grilling, boiling, stewing, steaming, searing and mixing (as in salads) are all traditional cooking methods. Stir-frying is common, and considered to be a Chinese influence. Stews are often green in color, because of the large proportion of vegetables used as well as ya nang leaf.
Ping means grilled. Ping gai is grilled chicken, ping sin is grilled meat, and ping pa is grilled fish. Before grilling, the meat may be seasoned with minced garlic, minced coriander root, minced galangal, salt, soy sauce, and fish sauce.
Ways Lao food differs from neighboring cuisines include that Lao meals commonly include a large quantity of fresh raw greens, vegetables and herbs served undressed on the side, and that savory dishes are never sweet, and some dishes are bitter.
The traditional manner of eating was communal, with diners sitting on a reed mat on the wooden floor around a raised platform woven out of rattan called a ka toke. Dishes are arranged on the ka toke, which is of a standard size. Where there are many diners, multiple ka tokes will be prepared. Each ka toke will have one or more baskets of sticky rice, which is shared by all the diners at the ka toke.
In recent times, eating at a ka toke is the exception rather than the rule. The custom is maintained, however, at temples, where each monk is served his meal on a ka toke. Once food is placed on the ka toke it becomes a pha kao. In modern homes, the term for preparing the table for a meal is still taeng pha kao, or prepare the phah kao.
Traditionally, spoons were used only for soups and white rice, and chopsticks (ໄມ້ທູ່,mai thu) were used only for noodles. Most food was handled by hand. The reason this custom evolved is probably due to the fact that sticky rice can only be easily handled by hand.
Lao meals typically consist of a soup dish, a grilled dish, a sauce, greens, and a stew or mixed dish (koy or laap). The greens are usually fresh raw greens, herbs and other vegetables, though depending on the dish they accompany, they could also be steamed or more typically, parboiled. Dishes are not eaten in sequence; the soup is sipped throughout the meal. Beverages, including water, are not typically a part of the meal. When guests are present, the meal is always a feast, with food made in quantities sufficient for twice the number of diners. For a host, not having enough food for guests would be humiliating.
The custom is to close the rice basket when one is finished eating.
Jaew (Lao: ແຈ່ວ) is a popular type of dipping sauce in Laos.
Kap kaem (Lao: ກັບແກ້ມ) are dishes served as snacks, before the main dish, or with beer.
Sarad (Lao: ສະຫຼັດ) is a general name to describe a dish with mixed vegetables, herbs, and spices. Meat salads in Laos are known as larb or laap.
Kaeng (Lao: ແກງ; lit. 'soup')
Ahan ping (Lao: ອາຫານປີ້ງ; lit. 'grilled food')
Ahan neung (Lao: ອາຫານຫນື້ງ; lit. 'steamed food')
Ahan kap khao (Lao: ອາຫານກັບເຂົ້າ; lit. 'food with rice') are dishes made with rice as the main ingredient.
Feu (Lao: ເຝີ) or mee (Lao: ໝີ່). Noodles are popular dishes in northern and central Laos. These can vary from "wet noodles" served with broth, or "dry noodles" which are typically stir-fried.
Bread is originally a French import, but very popular. The most common form is small baguettes, known as (Lao: ເຂົ້າຈີ່, romanized: khao chi).
Khong van (Lao: ຂອງຫວານ; lit. 'sweet things'). Lao desserts are generally made with the combination of tropical fruits and glutinous rice products. These can vary from types of cakes, to jelly, to drinks, and custards.
Lao coffee is often called Pakxong coffee (cafe pakxong in Lao), which is grown on the Bolovens Plateau around the town of Pakxong. This area is sometimes said to be the best place in Southeast Asia for coffee cultivation. Both robusta and Arabica are grown in Laos. Most of the Arabica in Laos is consumed locally and most of the Robusta is exported to Thailand, where it goes into Nescafé. The custom in Laos is to drink coffee in glasses, with condensed milk in the bottom, followed by a chaser of green tea. The highly regarded tea is also grown on the Bolovens Plateau.
There are two general types of traditional alcoholic beverages, both produced from rice: lao hai and lao lao. Lao hai means jar alcohol and is served from an earthen jar. It is communally and competitively drunk through straws at festive occasions. It can be likened to sake in appearance and flavor. Lao lao or Lao alcohol is more like a whiskey. It is also called lao khao or, in English, white alcohol. However, there is also a popular variant of lao lao made from purple rice, which has a pinkish hue.
The Lao state-owned brewery's Beerlao has become very popular in Laos. The Bangkok Post has described it as the Dom Pérignon of Asian beers. In 2004, Time magazine described it as Asia's best beer. In June 2005, it beat 40 other brews to take the silver prize at Russia's Osiris Beer Festival, which it had entered for the first time.