Tuesday 25 September 2007

Monk days...

Subtitled - How many times can one say squishy in a monk related post?

Every month on the full moon is considered a holy day, "Wan Pra" in Thai (literally Monk Day). On this day heaps of people go to the temple to donate food and chant and pray for their families...you know the deal...think Sunday mass in Jesus terms. Monk days also fall on many other days in the month that I'm not privy to but somehow all the old folks know when they are and dress up in their best gear, grab their food towers and head on down to the Wat (temple) in droves.

Next month's full moon is a biggun...it marks the end of Buddhist Lent where all the monks in Southern Thailand go into retreat for 3 months for the rainy season. This was the moon at my place (and I'm sure at yours too) last night...

As it's going to be gigantuan, a sign of things to come is how this month everyone's going crazy making all these Thai sweets (canom) of several varieties....we have Canom Beh Sum...pretty much just squishy donuts, dripping in oil...can't say they're my favourite, but they're edible.

Then we have Canom Tien which J's mother is making here...more squishiness which I believe is rice powder, sugar, egg with a mixture of mashed up sweet potato and beans (the hard, non-squish variety boiled until...um, squishy), then it's all wrapped up in banana leaves and steamed until, what's the word...it's super squisharama globules of goodness.




















I'm a bit of a squishy bean fan myself but reached maximum limit of hurlaciousness last night, so on a cleanse today....no coffee even! Going into convulsions of caffeine deficiency as we speak....

1 commentaramas:

Anonymous said...

I think Monk Day falls on full moon, new moon, and the two half moon. So there are usually 4 in a month. Most thai calendar has these phases of the moon on them.