From Farm to Plastic Bag: Papaya Salad Loses Its Locality

Corinne Kisner
Thailand
Every morning at 4 AM, long before her customers are hungry, Matyuree, 46, can be found browsing the markets of Khon Kaen in northeastern Thailand for perfect produce. Wearing a grey t-shirt with the slogan “College girls have all the fun,” Matyuree rattles through her morning shopping list: chili peppers, sugar, lime, MSG, tomato, shredded papaya, fermented fish and tamarinds. When asked what flavor MSG adds, Matyuree smiles from under her white conductor’s cap. “Arroy (delicious)!”

She earns her living selling som tam, a Thai papaya salad traditionally prepared with homegrown vegetables from the family farm. However, most Thais no longer grow papayas and ferment their own fish. Instead, urbanites rely on individuals like Matyuree to put traditional dishes in plastic bags.

This disconnect from meal preparation means that fewer people understand the origins of their food. Consumers may intuitively associate the vendor with production, but few vegetable merchants have a hand in the farming. In fact, the chain from producer to consumer is riddled with middlemen, shifting hundreds of kilograms of papayas and limes.

“I just sit here and make a phone call,” explains a woman in a beach chair at the wholesale market, her voice emerging from a sea of unripe bananas, red chili peppers, and shrink-wrapped papayas. She buys chilies from middlemen for 23 baht per kilo and sells them to market vendors for 25 baht a kilo. Her knowledge of the peppers’ origin is as sparse as the consumer’s.

Another woman wearing Converse sneakers and cuffed jeans perches alone on a blue plastic crate while men drink rice whiskey and gamble behind her. She buys papayas directly from farmers in villages 400 kilometers away. “The soil is bad here for growing papayas,” she notes. She pays drivers 5000 baht (150 USD) roundtrip to deliver papayas, and pays 2000 baht (60 USD) a month to rent her space in the market. For every kilo of papayas she moves, she earns one baht.

Some vendors at the wholesale market are more invested in the produce’s transport path. Lakara, 40, has been selling limes for 21 years, and knows by looking at an unmarked sack of limes where they were grown. Today she sits in a lawn chair wearing a plain white t-shirt and jeans, jotting quick calculations in her notebook. “On a good day, during a festival, I can sell 500 sacks of limes,” she says.

Lakara owns three pickup trucks and hires several drivers to make the 1600 kilometer round trip to collect limes from central Thailand. “I buy directly from several villages,” she says, and her clientele consists of people from all over the Northeast. “I have regular customers, but still, competition from six other lime salesmen is my biggest challenge.”

Although Lakara has only been to the lime farms once, she keeps busy at the wholesale market. “I work from 3 am to 6 pm every day. Selling limes is a big headache.” She smiles at her connection to the som tam sold in restaurants. “I prefer som tam Thai with crab and extra lime.”

Despite the loss in locality of a traditional dish, Matyuree maintains the homemade touch in her restaurant by boiling tamarinds and fermenting fish every morning. She has acquired tricks over the years and never measures the ingredients. “Nobody taught me to make som tam. I learned on my own,” she says. With a reliance on pre-bagged meals, future urban generations may have to teach themselves too.