Thai food has become so ubiquitous in recent years that it’s easy to feel like an expert eater, even if you’ve never been to Thailand. On the other hand, some Thai dishes are so strange that even Thais like acquired tastes. These are the strangest Thai foods you will find, even if you are a bona fide expert!
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Larb Dib
Even the most common variants of larb, a meat salad from the Isaan region of Thailand, are surprising to many foreign visitors to the Kingdom. After all, while Americans love a salad with more meat than vegetables, most do not want to eat a salad that is only meat, unless it is covered in mayonnaise.
While relatively tame larb recipes like larb moo (pork) and larb gai (chicken) are universally loved in Thailand, one type of larb is a decidedly niche food: Larb Dib , which is made from raw ground meat, often swimming in his own blood
Larb dib is not only one of the strangest foods in Thailand, it can be life threatening. This is because even though food sanitation standards in the Kingdom have increased dramatically in recent years, beef is particularly prone to parasites, bacteria and other sometimes lethal pathogens, meaning that the Larvae eaters are completely at the mercy of whatever is inside the raw meat they slurp.
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Som Tam Pla Ra
The Isaan region is both the source of Thailand’s most beloved cuisine, but also the most perplexing. Located in the northeastern part of the country, near the border with Laos, its trademarks are fresh, simple ingredients and a lot of heat – for many foreigners, too much.
That said, Thais and foreigners tend to love som tam papaya salad, at least the ‘vanilla’ version, which doesn’t contain any particularly strange ingredients. Opinion differs at the same time as the additional ingredients you add to the salad, reaching a critical point with som tam pla ra: Thai papaya salad with fermented fish or crab.
Although som tam pla ra faithful insist that the unpleasant odor exuded by fermented seafood does not affect its taste, it is important to note that the dish has different varieties of foul odor, depending on how it is prepared. If the person making it ferments fresh fish, it is som tam pla ra sot , which just ends up being a bit bitter. On the other hand, som tam pla ra lom uses fish that are already dead (and in some cases decomposing), and have an odor that many describe as unbearable.
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Khaaw Niaw Thu Rian
Speaking of stinky foods, every traveler to Thailand will have come across durian , such a smelly fruit that it is banned from taxis and hotels, even though most Thais love it. For most foreigners, durian is quite strange on its own, but there is a variation that is even less acceptable to people who think the fruit smells like socks or dirty feet.
Khaaw niaw thuian literally means “durian with sticky rice,” and it is essentially the same concept as its more universally loved cousin, the mango with sticky rice. Unfortunately, if you don’t like raw durian, sprinkling it with sweet coconut milk ( ga tii in Thai) is unlikely to suddenly make the so-called “King of Fruits” more appealing to you.
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Yum Khai Maeng Daa
Despite the fact that horseshoe crabs are much rarer than common crabs, they are eaten in certain parts of the world, including Thailand. One particular Thai preparation of horseshoe crab, Yum Khai Maeng Daa , is especially rare.
This is because the body of the horseshoe crab is simply used as a plate for this salad, the base of which is roe or eggs. In addition to this, the fact that the eggs that are served inside the body of the horseshoe crab are sometimes not its own, but those of the mantis shrimp, an equally strange animal. Let’s not even talk about the fact that some people consider horseshoe crabs to be toxic!
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Thua Dam Gaeng Bawd
Going back to the sweet side for a minute, you might not find this Thai dessert strange if you’ve spent a lot of time in Asia – beans are often used as a dessert in this part of the world, from China, to Thailand, Malaysia, and beyond.
However, looking through a Western lens, Thua Dam Gaeng Bawd , which literally means “Black Beans in Coconut Milk,” is a far cry from your typical black bean soup, even if the preparation is essentially the same, save for bean skins in thai variation do not break
One point about this strange Thai food that is important to note is the fact that it is artificially sweetened. In fact, kidney beans are most commonly used in Asian desserts; For black beans to “work” in this context, a not insignificant amount of palm sugar is necessary.
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Mae Lang Thood
It wouldn’t be a post about strange foods in Thailand without including ‘mistakes’. Real insects, not horseshoe crabs (which somehow have more in common with insects than less ancient crustaceans) or parasites that swim in larvae .
While it’s difficult to determine which of Thailand’s favorite insect dishes is the strangest, Mae Lang Thood (fried insects) seems like an obvious choice. This is because if you didn’t look at them closely before eating them, you may not realize they are insects.
Absent are the bitter flavors raw insects pour into your mouth when you bite into them, not to mention their strange squishy. The strangest thing about insects prepared this way is that, like “normal” Thai foods, they actually taste amazing!
