What can a bowl of curry teach us about a country? Quite a lot, as we discovered during a morning of shopping, cooking and eating our way through Thai food culture in Bangkok.
When we travel, we love visiting the famous landmarks. We want to see the temples, walk the streets, learn the history and visit the places that make a destination unique.
But some of our favourite travel experiences happen when we actually get involved.
Food is one of the best ways to do that.
The ingredients people grow, the flavours they combine and the dishes they share can tell us so much about a place. Geography, climate, agriculture, trade, history and family traditions can all find their way onto a plate.
So, while we were in Bangkok, we swapped sightseeing for aprons and headed to a Thai cooking class.
By lunchtime, we had visited a local market, discovered ingredients we had never cooked with before, pounded fresh herbs and spices into our own green curry paste and prepared four different Thai dishes.
And, of course, we ate everything we made.
It was a very good morning.
From fresh market ingredients to our finished Thai Green Chicken Curry—one delicious way to explore Thailand through food.
Our Bangkok Cooking Adventure Begins
We joined a morning class at Tingly Thai Cooking School in Bangkok. The experience began with a visit to a local market before we headed back to the cooking school to prepare the day's dishes.
On our menu were four Thai favourites:
- Tom Yum Goong
- Pad Thai
- Thai Green Chicken Curry
- Mango Sticky Rice
It was quite a menu to tackle in one morning.
What we particularly liked was that we weren't simply watching someone demonstrate how to make the dishes. We were going to cook them ourselves.
But first, we needed to go shopping.
First Stop: Exploring a Local Bangkok Market
Before we picked up a knife or turned on a stove, we headed to a local market.
Markets are always interesting places to explore when travelling. They are full of everyday life, and they can tell you a lot about what people actually eat.
Instead of seeing ingredients packaged and labelled on supermarket shelves, we could see fresh herbs, vegetables and other ingredients much closer to their original form.
Some were familiar. Others needed an introduction.
There were fresh chillies, lemongrass, galangal, Thai eggplants and herbs that would soon become part of the dishes we were going to cook.
This is one of the things we love about visiting food markets in other countries. You start asking questions.
What is that?
How do you cook it?
What does it taste like?
Why is it used in this dish?
Suddenly, buying ingredients becomes part of the travel experience.
Our cooking class began at a local Bangkok market, where we learned more about the fresh ingredients we would soon be cooking with.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Geography on Your Plate: Why Does Thai Food Taste Like Thailand?
Food doesn't develop in isolation. It is shaped, in part, by the environment in which people live.
Thailand has a predominantly tropical climate influenced by seasonal monsoons. Its warm conditions and agricultural landscapes support the production of rice and a wide variety of tropical crops and fresh ingredients.
Rice, in particular, has long been central to Thai agriculture and food culture.
That geography can be tasted in Thai cooking.
Rice appears in countless forms, from steamed rice served with curry to rice noodles in Pad Thai and glutinous rice in Mango Sticky Rice. Coconut milk gives richness to many dishes, while fresh herbs, chillies, limes and aromatic ingredients create many of the flavours for which Thai cuisine is known.
When you walk through a market in Bangkok and then cook with those ingredients a short time later, the connection becomes much easier to see.
The food on the plate has come from somewhere.
And understanding that somewhere is part of understanding the food.
🎬 Watch Our Bangkok Thai Cooking Adventure
Want to see how we went from the market to a bowl of homemade Thai Green Chicken Curry?
Come along with us as we explore the market, discover fresh ingredients, make our green curry paste from scratch, cook the curry, plate it up and—most importantly—taste the finished result!
Thai Cooking Class in Bangkok 🇹🇭 | Green Chicken Curry, Market Tour & Thai Food Culture
▶️ Watch our full Thai cooking experience on YouTube and come with us from the Bangkok market to the finished curry.
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Epqv_Xu2b9A
Thai Food Is All About Balance
One of the things that makes Thai food so interesting is the way different flavours work together.
You might taste:
- 🌶️ Spicy from fresh or dried chillies
- 🍋 Sour from ingredients such as lime or tamarind
- 🧂 Salty from fish sauce
- 🍬 Sweet from palm sugar
- 🌿 Savoury and aromatic flavours from herbs, spices and other ingredients
It doesn't mean that every Thai dish tastes equally sweet, sour, salty and spicy. Instead, those flavours can be adjusted and balanced within a dish and across a meal.
Our four dishes were a great example.
Tom Yum Goong brought hot, sour and aromatic flavours.
Pad Thai combined sweet, sour, salty and savoury elements.
Thai Green Curry was creamy, fragrant and spicy.
And Mango Sticky Rice finished everything with sweetness, coconut and fresh fruit.
Four very different dishes. Four very different experiences. And we were about to cook all of them.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Making Thai Green Curry Paste from Scratch
For us, one of the highlights of the class was making the green curry.
We have eaten Thai green curry many times before, but this time we weren't opening a jar of curry paste.
We were making it ourselves. From scratch.
We started with fresh ingredients and then came the hard work: pounding everything together to create the paste.
And there was a lot of pounding!
Both of us took a turn with the mortar and pestle, gradually transforming the individual ingredients into a fragrant green curry paste.
Geo certainly put some muscle into it—and there may also have been some clapping and cheering as the pounding continued!
It was fun, but it also gave us a much better appreciation of what goes into making curry paste from scratch.
When you see all the individual ingredients before they are combined, you begin to understand where the layers of flavour actually come from.
Making green curry paste the traditional way takes some effort! We both had a turn pounding the fresh ingredients together.
The result of all that pounding—our freshly made Thai green curry paste.
Why Is Thai Green Curry Green?
The answer seems obvious: green ingredients.
But the distinctive colour of traditional Thai green curry comes particularly from the fresh green chillies used in the curry paste, together with its other fresh ingredients.
Green curry is associated with central Thai cuisine and is known in Thai as kaeng khiao wan. Our chicken version is kaeng khiao wan gai.
The name is often translated into English as “sweet green curry”, although that doesn't simply mean it is a sugary curry. The name is generally understood to refer to the particular pale or “sweet” shade of green.
A green curry paste can include ingredients such as green chillies, shallots, garlic, galangal, lemongrass, coriander root and other herbs, spices and aromatics.
Recipes vary, which is another important thing to remember when exploring food: there is rarely only one way to make a dish.
Families, cooks and regions can all have their own versions.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
A Short History of Thai Green Curry
Thai green curry feels like a dish that must have existed forever, but the form of the dish we recognise today is generally associated with a more recent period in Thailand's long culinary history.
Green curry is associated with central Thai cuisine and is generally thought to have emerged in its recognisable modern form around the early 20th century.
That makes it an interesting reminder that cuisines are not frozen in time.
Recipes change.
New ingredients arrive.
Cooking techniques evolve.
People travel and trade.
Different cultures meet and influence one another.
Over time, a dish can become so strongly connected to a country that it is difficult to imagine the cuisine without it.
And that brings us to one of the most surprising ingredients in our curry.
The chilli.
🌶️ Wait... Chillies Aren't Originally from Thailand?
Today, it is almost impossible to imagine Thai food without chillies.
But chilli plants are not originally from Thailand—or even from Asia.
Chillies originated in the Americas. Following contact between the Americas and the rest of the world from the late 15th century onwards, they travelled across oceans through expanding global trade networks. Portuguese traders are commonly associated with helping spread chillies through parts of Asia during the 16th century.
Think about that for a moment.
An ingredient that is now so strongly associated with Thai food had to travel thousands of kilometres before it ever became part of Thai cooking.
Over generations, cooks incorporated chillies into local dishes and combined them with existing ingredients, flavours and cooking traditions.
Today, they are an essential part of many of the foods people immediately associate with Thailand.
It is a brilliant example of how food can reveal the history of our interconnected world.
A single ingredient can tell a story about geography, exploration, trade and cultural exchange.
All hidden inside a bowl of curry.
Today, chillies are closely associated with Thai cuisine—but chilli plants originally came from the Americas.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
From Curry Paste to Thai Green Chicken Curry
Once our curry paste was ready, it was time to turn it into lunch.
This was the moment when all that pounding started to pay off.
We stir-fried our freshly made curry paste until it became fragrant, then added coconut cream and the other ingredients that would transform it into our Thai Green Chicken Curry.
Soon, everything was bubbling away. The smell was incredible.
And because we had made the paste ourselves, we knew exactly how much work had gone into creating those flavours.
Our freshly made green curry paste was now becoming lunch.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Moment of Truth: Tasting Our Curry
Then came the best part. Eating it.
It was absolutely delicious.
There is something especially satisfying about sitting down to eat a dish you have made from the beginning—particularly when the beginning involved visiting the market, learning about the ingredients and pounding your own curry paste.
We hadn't just ordered a Thai green curry. We now understood a little more about how it was made. And somehow, that made it taste even better.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
What Else Did We Cook?
Green curry may have been the star of our video, but it wasn't the only dish on the menu.
By the end of the class, we had cooked four different Thai dishes.
🍤 Tom Yum Goong
Tom Yum Goong is one of Thailand's best-known soups.
It is famous for its bold combination of hot and sour flavours, together with fragrant ingredients that give the soup its distinctive aroma.
“Goong” refers to prawns or shrimp, while “tom yum” refers to the style of hot-and-sour soup.
It was a completely different dish from our creamy green curry, which made it a great example of the variety found within Thai cuisine.
Tom Yum Goong—a fragrant Thai hot-and-sour soup with prawns.
🍜 Pad Thai
Pad Thai is one of the most internationally recognised Thai dishes.
Made with rice noodles and a combination of ingredients that create its characteristic balance of flavours, it is now found in Thai restaurants around the world.
For us, cooking it in Bangkok was another opportunity to look more closely at a dish we already knew.
Instead of simply seeing “Pad Thai” written on a menu, we could see how the ingredients came together in the pan.
And, once again, geography was sitting right there on the plate.
Rice noodles reflect the enormous importance of rice within Thailand's food culture and agricultural landscape.
Making one of Thailand's most internationally recognised dishes—Pad Thai.
🥭 Mango Sticky Rice
After cooking our way through soup, noodles and curry, there was still dessert.
Mango Sticky Rice—Khao Niao Mamuang—combines glutinous sticky rice, coconut and fresh mango.
It sounds simple, but the combination works beautifully.
The fresh mango and coconut also provide another connection to Thailand's tropical environment.
It was a very good way to finish the menu.
There is always room for dessert—especially when it is Mango Sticky Rice.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
What Can Thai Food Teach Us About Thailand?
By the end of the morning, we had learned how to make four dishes.
But we had also learned much more than that.
🌏 Geography
Thailand's climate and agricultural landscapes help shape the ingredients available to cooks.
Rice, tropical fruits, coconut and fresh herbs all connect food to the physical environment.
🌾 Agriculture
Before ingredients reach a market, restaurant or cooking school, somebody has to grow, harvest, transport and sell them.
A market visit helps make that food journey more visible.
🧭 History
Ingredients move around the world.
The story of the chilli shows how global exploration and trade can transform the food of countries thousands of kilometres away.
👨👩👧👦 Culture
Food is about more than nutrition.
Recipes are cooked, shared, adapted and passed between people. They can become part of celebrations, everyday family life and national identity.
🔄 Change
There is no moment when a cuisine simply becomes “finished”.
Food continues to evolve as people move, new ingredients become available and traditions adapt.
That is one of the reasons we find food such an interesting way to explore the world.
A recipe can be a geography lesson.
An ingredient can contain a history lesson.
And a cooking class can turn both into something you can taste.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
📱 See More of Our Thai Cooking Adventure
Want the short version?
Watch our Bangkok Thai cooking Reel for a quick look at our cooking experience and delicious results.
LINK: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZPRy4fpDcG/
🌏 Follow @TheGeoKidOfficial on Instagram for more family travel, geography and culture as we explore and learn our way around the world.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Why We Recommend Taking a Cooking Class When You Travel
We always encourage families to look for experiences that help them engage with the places they visit.
A cooking class is a great example.
It is hands-on. You are learning new skills. You are trying unfamiliar ingredients. You can ask questions. And at the end, you get to eat what you have made.
For kids and teenagers, it can also make learning feel completely different.
You are not reading about another culture in a textbook.
You are walking through a market.
You are smelling the herbs.
You are tasting the ingredients.
You are trying to remember what goes into the wok next.
And, occasionally, you are pounding curry paste while everyone cheers you on.
We did our class at Tingly Thai Cooking School in Bangkok and really enjoyed the combination of the market visit and hands-on cooking.
For families who enjoy Thai food, there is another bonus.
You go home knowing how to make it.
Long after the holiday is over, you can cook one of the dishes again and be transported back to that experience.
The smell of lemongrass.
The sound of the market.
The curry bubbling in the pan.
The memory of eating something you made together in Bangkok.
For us, experiences like this are one of the best parts of family travel—learning something new and creating memories together.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Bring the Journey Home: Make Thai Green Curry
One of the wonderful things about learning to cook while travelling is that the experience doesn't have to end when the holiday does.
You can bring a small part of the journey home.
Below are the recipes for the Green Curry Paste and Thai Green Chicken Curry we learned to make during our cooking experience in Bangkok.
First, make the curry paste from scratch.
Then use it to create the finished curry.
🌿 Homemade Thai Green Curry Paste
Nam Phrik Kaeng Khiao Waan
Making green curry paste from scratch takes a little more effort than opening a jar—but it is also a wonderful way to experience the fresh ingredients and aromas that give Thai green curry its distinctive flavour.
Traditionally, the ingredients are pounded together using a mortar and pestle until they form a smooth, fragrant paste.
Ingredients
- 15 large green hot chillies
- 3 shallots, sliced
- 9 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon finely sliced galangal
- 1 teaspoon finely sliced lemongrass
- ½ teaspoon finely sliced makrut lime rind (often sold as kaffir lime)
- 1 teaspoon chopped coriander root
- 5 peppercorns
- 1 tablespoon ground roasted coriander seeds
- 1 teaspoon roasted cumin
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon shrimp paste
Vegetarian option: Omit the shrimp paste.
Method
1. Prepare the spices
Place the roasted coriander seeds, roasted cumin and peppercorns into a mortar.
Pound well until finely ground.
Transfer the spice mixture to a small bowl and set aside.
2. Start the curry paste
Add the green chillies and salt to the mortar and pound thoroughly.
3. Add the fresh ingredients
Add the shallots, garlic, galangal, lemongrass, makrut lime rind and coriander root.
Continue pounding until the ingredients are well combined and begin to form a paste.
4. Add the spices and shrimp paste
Return the ground spice mixture to the mortar, then add the shrimp paste.
Continue pounding until everything is thoroughly combined and the curry paste is as smooth and fine as possible.
Your homemade Thai green curry paste is now ready to use.
🌶️ Our experience: Using a mortar and pestle takes time—and a fair bit of effort! We both had a turn pounding the fresh ingredients during our cooking class in Bangkok. It was hard work, but it was also a brilliant way to see individual chillies, herbs, spices and aromatics gradually transform into one intensely fragrant curry paste.
🍛 Thai Green Chicken Curry
Kaeng Khiao Waan Gai
This is the Green Chicken Curry we learned to cook in Bangkok using our freshly made green curry paste.
The original recipe from our cooking class serves one person, so we have also included the quantities for two people.
Ingredients
|
Ingredient |
Serves 1 |
Serves 2 |
|
Chicken, sliced |
70 g |
140 g |
|
Green curry paste |
2 tbsp |
4 tbsp |
|
Coconut cream |
1 cup |
2 cups |
|
Coconut milk |
1 cup |
2 cups |
|
Thai eggplant, quartered |
1 |
2 |
|
Baby eggplants |
10 |
20 |
|
Makrut lime leaves, torn |
2 |
4 |
|
Fish sauce |
1 tbsp |
2 tbsp |
|
Palm sugar |
1 tsp |
2 tsp |
|
Sweet basil leaves |
¼ cup |
½ cup |
|
Red spur chilli, sliced diagonally |
½ |
1 |
|
Cooking oil |
1 tbsp |
2 tbsp |
Vegetarian option
Replace the chicken with tofu and use 1 teaspoon of salt per person instead of fish sauce.
If making the curry from scratch, also prepare the green curry paste without shrimp paste.
Method
1. Prepare the chicken
Slice the chicken into bite-sized pieces.
2. Cook the curry paste
Heat the cooking oil in a wok or pan over medium heat.
Add the green curry paste and stir-fry until fragrant.
3. Add the coconut cream
Pour in the coconut cream and stir well.
Continue cooking until the mixture is fragrant and you begin to see oil appearing on the surface.
4. Add the chicken and eggplants
Add the sliced chicken, quartered Thai eggplant and baby eggplants.
Stir-fry until the chicken has just started to cook.
5. Add the coconut milk and seasonings
Pour in the coconut milk.
Add the palm sugar and fish sauce and stir to combine.
6. Simmer until cooked
Bring the curry to a gentle boil and cook until the chicken is completely cooked through and the eggplants are tender.
7. Add the fresh aromatics
Add the sweet basil leaves, sliced red spur chilli and torn makrut lime leaves.
Stir through, then turn off the heat.
8. Serve
Transfer the curry to a serving bowl and garnish with additional sweet basil if desired.
Serve hot with rice.
Enjoy!
Ready to try it yourself? Our Thai Green Chicken Curry made with curry paste from scratch.
The World Is a Classroom
There are many ways to explore a country.
You can visit its famous landmarks.
Walk through its museums.
Learn about its history.
Explore its landscapes.
But you can also visit a market, pick up a mortar and pestle and discover why a curry tastes the way it does.
Our morning cooking in Bangkok reminded us that food can be one of the most interesting ways to learn about the world.
So, next time you travel, try something local.
Visit a market.
Ask what an unfamiliar ingredient is.
Try a dish you have never eaten before.
Take a cooking class.
Learn a recipe you can bring home.
And the next time you sit down to eat food from another country, take a closer look.
You might just find geography, history and culture sitting right there on your plate.
Keep exploring. The world is an amazing classroom. 🌏