The Mango Lady

Chiang Mai was the first place in Southeast Asia that I lived when I first came in 2005. I still remember thinking that I had found the world up side down. Thailand is the perfect place to be introduced to the life and culture of Southeast Asia. Thailand does not make you forgo the amenities that westerners take for granted. Instead, you can access steaks, pizza and other western foods easily and with good flavor. For me Chiang Mai turned into a food lovers paradise. When I was teaching I would have a route on my way home. I would first go to the woman who would make me green papaya salad then I would motor over to the restaurant that made my favorite satay with pork or chicken. On my grazing missions I would almost always end up at the Mango Lady.

The Mango lady changed my life. Her speciality is mango and sticky rice. This is a classic in all Thai restaurants but we rarely get a good version. Most preparations are made with processed sugar and canned coconut milk and terrible Mexican mangos which are fibrous and low in sugar content. Although you can get a good idea of the flavors of this dish you really never get the real one. I think that I put the Mango Lady's kids through college or high school because I would go there almost everyday.

One day my friend Nick who had been a resident of Chiang Mai for almost two years by the time I came knew of this woman and introduced me to this wonderful food stall. At first glance her shop does not look like anything special, stacks of mangos and a couple of stainless containers with the sticky rice. The shop is located in front of another business and is in a very precarious position. Looking like it is being squeezed out of the street by the emerging buildings being built around it. On my most recent stop she told me that she would be taking down the original shop and making it smaller so that it would exist in the patio of the new hotel being built up behind her shop. For more than 50 years this family has been making mango and sticky rice with singular vision. Making or buying the freshly made coconut milk and using palm sugar which is a darker and deeper flavor of sugar (kind of like brown sugar). In occidental culture we honor people who are multi-disciplinary in their passions and knowledge. 

In Southeast Asia the tables are turned, people accept there position and then try and concentrate on being the best at that job. You see this in the ramen masters in Japan, the Peking duck chefs in Beijing or the Mango and sticky rice lady in Chiang Mai. In kitchens there are always many discussions about what makes a great chef, is it love of food, precision, knife skills or ingenuity. For the mango lady it is about perfection, creating the best product day in day out with the consistency of a Swiss watch. I was really happy to have made this pilgrimage to her once again and tasted the great combination of fruit and sweet rice. I still have dreams about this dish. There are somethings in life which you can not recreate in your kitchen. Flavor is fleeting and very hard to replicate. If you have the time when you come to Chiang Mai visit this woman. She serves her mango and sticky rice five times a week just off three kings monument across the street from the high school. Enjoy!