The pork in Thailand is astounding.

For two years I’ve asked around and have been told a million stories, but nothing I can even begin to verify. My favorite is that Germans showed them how to raise good pork and they took it from there. Can’t verify it, so it’s just one of many stories.

But it doesn’t matter because the pork is good anyway.

Living in Thailand quickly disabuses you of any notion that any vegan anywhere is right in their minds or honest in any way. They use Thailand mercilessly for their propaganda, simply because Thailand does plants very well and beautifully—always colorful and delightful. They dishonestly use that for their health-crashing evil in order to imply That thailand is largely plant based. It’s the farthest thing from the truth—I have NEVER had a meal from Thais anywhere in the whole country that’s not highly inclusive of animals, fish, and shellfish. Animal protein is the very bedrock basis of their diets. Nobody even knows a vegan in this country of 70 million people. If they did, they wouldn’t even tell you.

Thais hate vegans, because this is how they will always represent them, as evil to the core that they are.

But here’s the whole meal, and that’s right in front of my house in Si Sa Ket. Home cooked, and example of every damn day.

That is a simple illustration of how fucking ideological, religious, and pure evil all vegans are. There is not a single exception on the entire planet.

I’ll introduce this post in a most peculiar way. Unless you’re deaf, dumb, and blind you know I live in Thailand. Right here.

I’ve also lived in Chiang Mai in the northwest and the Isan area, which comprises the northeast between Cambodia and Laos.

The pork is fantastic everywhere.

Now we get to peculiar. Though I’ve had my love affair with pork all over Thailand, it recently became pronounced. Do I tell the story first, or show the picture?

The story is that a few months ago, I moved for the 4th time in a year, from one place to another in a 5 kilometer radius. This last place is the best. Think of it as a gated townhome community in USA speak. It comprises 60-80 two and three bedroom individual free-standing homes. It’s in Mediterranean style. Mine is 2-story (spiral staircase), 2 bedroom, 2 bath, and high ceilings.

Most units are owned by Russians and Ukrainians. But, I happen to live between two Italians. One young and one old. The young one, Claudio, is mid-30s with a young petite Thai wife and a 1-yo boy, Augusto. Dominic, on the other side, is a vibrant and healthful older dude (70s) with the sweetest 40-something Thai wife you would ever care to meet. I simply adore her and that radiant smile.

Claudio is a tech entrepreneur with an upstairs office. He loves to cook and entertain. His unit is a bit different from mine in that his back patio is covered, basically a dining room, and he’s installed an impressive American style griller and smoker. It’s 3 meters away as I sit here.

…He’s actually Swiss, but born right on the border with Italy. Italian through and through. When his mom was here recently I really hit it off with her nicely. Her English is not so good and Italian for me is non-existent, but her French is on par with mine, so that’s how we communicate. The wonder of expat life.

It wasn’t very long after I moved in here early last December that Claudio and I began chatting across the 1 meter-high wall that divides us. Like a typical Italian he loves food and knows how to prepare it. Italians—as all mediterraneans—do not compromise on quality. They are quintessential food conservatives, born of hundreds of years of familial and community research.

Cloudio has a keen interest in curing and smoking meat, and that’s born of his recognition that Thailand pork is quite good. Italians—as do the French and Spanish—have myriad ways of meat preservation that developed over the centuries and have been refined. They know their shit.

As it goes, Claudio decides to begin curing and smoking whole pork bellies. The smoking part I know well enough—my grandfather was a smoker of fish since I can remember a thing and my brothers and I have smoked all sorts of meat, and even turkeys.

But because of Claudio, I suspect that a huge part of the art is in the curing, by whatever method. I think it’s the essential transformative element. Curing is a term that simply means to get the moisture out. The issue is: how much, how quick, and by which particular means.

I haven’t asked him yet but his curing of a pork belly, then smoking, rendered this when I fried up some “bacon.”

We ate some crudo after the smoking, but this just puts it over the top.

…Two nights ago I woke up late or early. It was 2am, and Claudio was out smoking. This was a big damn batch. “I gave so much away last time…”

When I woke up, I noted that my house smelled like a Texas BBQ Roadhouse (I keep my doors wide open). Wonderful, and living in Thailand makes that rather serendipitous and delightful.

I have a nice bag of this latest batch in the fridge.

…I’m pretty firmly convinced that the wonder of Thai pork is principally a function of its fat makeup. That conviction is born of a few things, but principally diet. The fat of an animal is simply going to reflect the diet of the animal, and most starkly.

This is similarly observed in chicken where there’s not the simple white-meat-dark-meat thing we all know. It’s hybrid. Even chicken breasts have plenty of signs of “dark meat” and are more moist and tastier than the Colonel’s. KFC is a good hit here in Thailand. You can Google around to see people asking “why is KFC so much better in Thailand?”

I love KFC here and it’s hard to stay away… I never ever gave it much of a thought in the USA.

…Cloudio and I have been talking about beef brisket. He’s keen on doing the standard Texas BBQ but I’m trying to coddle him into a complicated pastrami.

There’s more. How about making bacon out in the villages of Isan from fresh pork belly? We do it all the time. You have to be careful, since it’s uncured; meaning, it has all its cellular moisture intact.

We can get it any time, any where and even Thias often refer to it as baycone. I would suppose that the process is similar to the authentic Mexican form of chicharrón where they use pork belly and not skin—the latter being for the dry-cough inducing pork rinds.

I’m an aficionado out in the village. From wet and fresh pork belly to this in about an hour. Note how the pork fat is yellow and not white. What does that tell some of you health geeks?

The basic secret is low, slow, and covered. Covering the wok on a lower temperature imparts only minimal direct heat whist—virtue of the weight of the lid—increasing the pressure inside and thus, lowering the boiling point, etc. (basic gas-law stuff). Bottom line, it’s a cooking method to rapidly get the damn water out of the tissues without overcooking the meat or over-rendering the fat.

I also BBQ ribs dry rub. I did this one for the Thai villagers building my house back then. Ovens are not a Thai thing, so I had to make one out of on-site building materials (that grate is used for concrete pads).

There was not a morsel of tendon left on any bone. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pics of the finished product because my workers dug in pretty quickly and after 12 hours, they were righteous hungry.

In case anyone is wondering, I used cement backer-board as a cover.

So. I’ll polish it off with a hodgepodge of my love affair with pork in all forms in Thailand.

A few days ago I took account that paid membership is getting up there. I began this almost a year ago, now, as simply a means of slowing the erosion of savings because Covid. Lots of people in that boat. I feel your pains. It was up-and-down going over the year but I’ve reached parity. I haven’t liquidated a financial asset in a couple of months.

Up to now, I’ve had a sort of “sales funnel” method, where I write public posts so they become free members and then write free member posts so they become paid. Fine and dandy and that works to reasonable extent.

But it completely fucks my product delivery, which is the written word!

I can’t even begin to describe the agony or angst I’d go through just to write a damn post.

I solved it.

From a few days ago into the foreseeable future all my posts are for my employers.

I’m suddenly happy, clear minded, buzzing with ideas…but most importantly, a zeal to write in a way where I feel that I’ve under promised and over delivered.

Thank you for hiring me.