Spicy Thai Green Papaya Salad – A Passion Thriller or Killer
Spicy Thai Green Papaya Salad otherwise known as som tum or som tam grabbed my attention this week when I read an article on HubPages teasingly and titillatingly titled The Thailand Sex Diet. The article, expertly written by Peter Dickinson author of e-zine Zoo News Digest, first explains how to make the perfect papaya salad and then delves a little deeper into a plateful of Thailand’s pungent, yet piquant fiery salad, which Peter describes as being sweet, sour, salty, spicy and sexy.
Peter lists eight of the ingredients in his papaya salad recipe as having aphrodisiac properties. So grab a shopping trolley and get a load of these:
Green papaya, garlic, tomato, chili, ginger, coriander, crab and peanuts.
If it’s true about what it says on The Thailand Sex Diet tin, then a spicy Thai green papaya salad will not only put fire in your belly but lead in your pencil too…..I always thought Thailand’s spicy salad squeezed the toothpaste out of the tube in more ways than one…..and how come the red chili on the right looks so…..limp?
I do wonder how many times the kind of scene below has been played out after a loving couple have shared a romantic candlelight meal of spicy Thai green papaya salad.
Sexy Papaya Salad Moments
Farang: You’ve been in the bathroom a long time darling. Are you trying on those stockings and suspenders I bought you?
Thai Girl: No have sa-spend-her. Have tong sia mark mark (very bad diarrhea).
Farang: Oh…right…..I’ll snuff out the candles and put on the TV…the football’s about to start.
Thai Girl: See you half…..time.
The Thailand Sex Diet article does acknowledge many good attributes about the ingredients of a papaya salad, not that an aphrodisiacal property is a bad one at all. And below I’ve laid out a bit of both…..in my own words.
- Green Papaya – An excellent antioxidant which can help in the prevention of cancer and arthritis. Green papaya is also known to enhance female libido which ‘perverts’ it as a big green organic sex pill.
- Garlic – Another antioxidant which is rich in vitamins and can help lower cholesterol and blood pressure too. Garlic also stimulates blood circulation which needs no explanation at all.
- Tomato –
Low in calories, rich in vitamins and the love apple has been known for a long time to be a natural aphrodisiac. It’s also simpler to swallow than a green papaya and a bottle of tomatoes is far easier to carry home from a pharmacy store. - Chili Peppers – Peter doesn’t list any health properties but on the aphrodisiacal side of things merits chili peppers as having the prowess to warm one’s body and release endorphins which stimulate nerve endings.
- Ginger – Reduces inflammation, fights infections and breaks down fat. It also aids blood circulation and is another well-known natural aphrodisiac.
- Coriander – It helps in the treatment of diarrhea, nausea, hepatitis and colitis. And if you do make it out of the bathroom after suffering from one of those, coriander is one of the oldest aphrodisiacs of all. According to The Thailand Sex Diet its strength is such that many countries in the past had banned it from use.
- Crab – Another ingredient which gets no real health observations but is useful in the bedroom, bike shed or back alley because its rich zinc content helps in the production of sperm.
- Peanuts – They are rich in Vitamin E which is known as ‘the sex vitamin’ and widely used on the Caribbean island of Jamaica in a popular aphrodisiac drink called Jamaican Peanut Punch.
How about you, does a spicy Thai green papaya salad put you in the mood for a bit of ‘boom boom’. Is it a passion thriller or killer for you?
You forgot the long green beans, Martyn, which helps give a little forward thrust.
Dan and Ploy – I could do with some forward thrust at the moment as I’ve picked up some kind of bug over the Christmas period, it’s not too bad but it’s making everything I want to do that little bit more tiresome.
Good luck with your Singapore venture in 2012 and keep feeding the long green beans to SingMat.
After seeing how they make that brown fermented fish sauce that they mix in with it, I wouldn’t touch the stuff. The ingredients you listed are all fine and good, but I’d much prefer them in a different dish.
Lawrence I have carried a few bottles of fermented fish sauce home to the UK in my suitcase before. Not for me but for my mate’s Thai wife. I’ve always been thankful the bottle tops have always stayed on. That stuff rivals durian in the smell stakes. Probably beats it.
Oh Martyn, I disagree. Durian is the smell of roses compared to phla rha, or bar rar, or fermented fish. The stuff absolutely reeks! A tiny, TINY proportion in som tum however gives great body, as I am trying to convince myself…..K
Kris – I don’t actually mind som tam, as long as I keep it to a nibble or two. I’ve never had a full scale attack on a plateful before. However I do know the fermented fish sauce smells like hell.