A Visit to Ruamchook Market

I’d heard that cooking schools in Chiang Mai are a dime a dozen and after getting a recommedation from Boots in the Oven, I signed up for a day’s course at the Thai Farm Cooking School. After being picked up from our respective hotels, we’re first brought to Ruamchook Market, a medium sized food market about 20 minutes drive out of Chiang Mai. I adored this market – favouring it to the markets in Chiang Mai. There’s a slower pace to the market that allows one to slowly walk from stall to stall at one’s own pace, without the crowds pushing against you. We only had about 10 minutes for a quick lookaround though and I’m showing the few food photos I managed to take.

Alongside the usual market offerings of meat and fish and dry goods, there were vegetables galore,

pink preserved eggs,

and lots of ready to eat, prepared foods.

But the most interesting stall was this one:

Highlights included fried silkworm pupae (through the power of pseudo-sign language, I bought some of these – crispy on the outside and a little chewy on the inside…),

fried black shiny beetles,

fried giant water beetles (each was about 8cm long!),

and um…these things.

Can’t tell what they are? Click on the photo for a closer look and the answer.

Um, no thanks.