Talk:Kaeng som

Kaeng lueang and kaeng som

"Kaeng lueang" can indeed be called "kaeng som" in Southern Thailand but it is not the same dish as the Central Thai "kaeng som". It only shares the same name. I asked one of my Southern Thai friends and the word "kaeng lueang" is also used in the South, but more in the upper areas. It is mainly the deep south that uses the word "kaeng som". It is like with "khao soi". In Northern Thailand "khao soi" is a coconut curry soup with egg noodles, whereas in Laos, it is a meat broth with strips of thick steamed rice cake.

As for the so-called "yellow curry" (kaeng kari), this dish came in to Thailand probably from Malaysia. The way the curry is made, is very much a Malay adaptation of an Indian curry as it uses dried galangal, something that is very Malay/Indonesian but not very Indian to do. - Takeaway (talk) 09:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your clarifications. It is a long time since I wanted to make this article but was not sure on how to approach it. I have included both terms using the Thai article as guideline. My wife, however, says that the term "kaeng lueang" in the context of Southern kaeng som is probably modern, not of traditional origin. She doesn't remember hearing it in her youth. It is possible that some restaurants in tourist areas throughout the country use the term because it is present in cookbooks in English. And also because some restaurants may want to include both versions of the curry in their menu with a distinct name for each variant. At any rate, after talking to Thais, to me it seems that the crux of the question is what is being emphasized when choosing a particular name, for the essence of this curry is its sourness, not its color. Thais who are into linguistics say that the "som" does not refer to "orange", but to sourness, the color being irrelevant. Xufanc (talk) 09:35, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I have removed the term "misnomer", to make it neutral. Xufanc (talk) 10:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

As I said before, the name kaeng lueang is also used in the South according to one of my friends from Southern Thailand. It just depends on which part of the South you are. In the upper parts of the South, closer to the Central regions where one finds the Central Thai kaeng som, people apparently use the word kaeng lueang to differentiate the two, not just for tourists, but for themselves. - Takeaway (talk) 12:53, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

That is very enlightening and it would be important to include. If you have a citation it should be mentioned in the text. So the article would be comprehensive. I am happy with any other constructive additions you make to the article. Xufanc (talk) 17:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

So far I have not come up with a source that kaeng som is primarily known as kaeng lueang in the South, nor that it is a different dish. The Thai Wikipedia article treats both the central and the southern version of the dish evenhandedly as my original article introduction did. But there is this note in one of the sources written by a Thai:[3] What's funny about Southern kaeng som is that the Centralites, in order to prevent confusion, have taken the liberty of assigning the name, "Kaeng Lueang" (แกงเหลือง – literally "yellow curry"...) to this slightly-different version of sour curry due to the yellow hue of the turmeric. Yet, ask any Southerners who are still connected to their roots what they call the curry which Centralites refer as "kaeng lueang," and they’ll tell you that it has been and will always be "kaeng som" to them. This, incidentally, provides further support for "som" meaning "sour" and having absolutely nothing to do with the color. Sources have to be provided that "kaeng lueang" is a different dish and that it is not a misnomer. Xufanc (talk) 02:09, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The way you phrase the article, "kaeng som" and "kaeng lueang" are seen as being regional variations of the same dish. The problem lies with the word "kaeng som" which, besides being the name of a certain Central Thai dish, also only means "sour curry".

Excepting those Southern Thais who call it "kaeng som" because of the sour taste, we have millions of other Thais who use a different name for this dish because they see it as being a significantly different dish. I mean no disrespect to Leela Punyaratabandhu of SheSimmers.com as it is one of the best websites on Thai food but in my opinion, we would need more than only one sentence in one website to declare dishes which have been assigned different names by the vast majority of the Thais to be designated to be the same dish in wikipedia. Especially because all she mentions, is that the original name down south for kaeng lueang is kaeng som and that it is (slightly) different. She never mentions that they are the same dish. - Takeaway (talk) 04:15, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

It is not the way I personally phrase it. The Wikipedia article in Thai says so: แกงส้ม เป็นอาหารไทยภาคกลาง ประเภทแกงที่มีรสเปรี้ยว โดยเป็นแกงที่ใส่เนื้อสัตว์ ส่วนใหญ่เป็นปลาหรือกุ้ง ผักที่ใช้อาจเป็นผักบุ้ง มะละกอ หัวไชเท้า กะหล่ำดอก ดอกแค หรือไข่เจียวชะอม ใช้น้ำพริกแกงส้มละลายน้ำ ต้มให้เดือด ใส่ผักและเนื้อสัตว์ ปรุงรสด้วยน้ำส้มมะขาม น้ำตาลปี๊บ เกลือ มีรสชาติเผ็ด หวาน เค็ม เปรี้ยว ถ้าเป็นแกงส้มทางภาคใต้ จะปรุงรสเปรี้ยวด้วยส้มแขก และเพิ่มขมิ้นในน้ำพริกแกง ทำให้น้ำพริกแกงมีสีเหลือง จึงเรียกอีกอย่างว่า "แกงเหลือง. I have no bias for either but a NPOV is of the utmost importance in Wikipedia and it is apparent that you have strong feelings that "kaeng lueang" is a different dish. Thus you removed my translation of the more proportionate Thai article that headed the English article in my first edit. The preparation of the dish is the same, it is a sour soup with fish and vegetables, the only difference is that turmeric is added. Sometimes even in Southern Thailand tamarind is also used as souring agent. Even Leela Punyaratabandhu is only one link and you seem to throw a challenge that more links are needed. However, in order to make your edits verifiable it would be more important that a source from Southern Thailand would support your claim that the word "kaeng lueang" is widely used and that it is a different dish from "kaeng som". In the absence of this your edits are not abiding by the NPOV code. Xufanc (talk) 06:16, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The sentence "Southern Thailand has its own sour curry which they call kaeng som but..." represents Southern Thai cuisine unfairly, as if "they" would call "their curry" wrongly and the central curry was the right one. Xufanc (talk) 06:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

You copied the text from the Thai wikipedia article to support your edits which state that the two dishes are in some way "the same" and not, as I say, very different. Here is a correct translation of the Thai text: "Kaeng som" is a Thai dish from Central Thailand. The soup is grouped under the sour "kaeng" with meat added to it, mainly fish or prawns, and vegetables such as morning glory, papaya, radish greens, cauliflower, "dok khae", or "cha-om" omelet. Dissolve "nam phrik kaeng som" in (boiled) water and bring it to a boil. Then add in vegetables and meat, season with tamarind juice, palm sugar and salt for it to achieve a spicy, sweet, salty and sour flavor. The "kaeng som" from Southern Thailand gets its sour taste from "som khaek" while the turmeric in the "nam phrik kaeng" gives the "nam phrik kaeng" a yellow color. That is why it is known by everyone as "kaeng lueang".
So the Thai wikipedia article starts by saying that "kaeng som" is a dish from Central Thailand and continues to describe the ingredients for the Central Thai dish. It ends by stating that the sour curry ("kaeng som") from Southern Thailand is known by everyone (Thai: อย่างว่า: lit. "everyone says") as kaeng lueang. This implies to me that the the Thais who wrote the Thai wikipedia page also see both dishes as being very different, only sharing the same name in different regions. It would seem that your way of phrasing the text in this article is indeed only your POV, and not what you have read in the Thai wikipedia. It would also seem that your whole idea that the southern Thai dish is a "variation" is all based on your misinterpretation of one sentence in Leela Punyaratabandhu's website (she's American by the way, from a Thai family, and although born in Bangkok, she was mainly raised and lived most of her life in the United States).
I have asked one of my friends, a women who was born and raised in Thailand and also still lives here, and who is also a food journalist for a well-known Thai food magazine, if kaeng som from Central Thailand and the sour curry from Southern Thailand are the same. Just like all my other Thai friends here in Thailand, she too immediately said that they were very different. According to her, the proportions of the spice mix are different, and that using som khaek instead of tamarind gives it a very different taste (that sometimes in modern, non-traditional, Thai cooking tamarind is used instead, is because tamarind is much easier to find and store than som khaek), and that using turmeric in the southern dish also makes it very different. Even the chillies used for the curry paste are different. The additional vegetable and seafood ingredients are also very different. Some ingredients that will be used in Central Thai kaeng som would never be used in Southern Thai kaeng som/kaeng lueang.
I do not see how the phrase that "Southern Thailand has its own sour curry which they call kaeng som but which in central Thailand is called kaeng lueang to differentiate it from the central Thai kaeng som" in any way suggests that the Southern Thais have gotten it wrong. It can only be read that way if read by someone who really is looking to push their own POV.
I also do not see how calling the Southern dish a "variation" of the Central Thai dish is "even-handedly" at all as it suggest that it is derived from the Central Thai dish.
It would seem that the southern Thai kaeng som/kaeng lueang actually could have an article of its own. Either that or the present kaeng som article should be rephrased in such a way that it is clear that it is not a "variation" but a dish in its own right, something I have tried to do several times already. - Takeaway (talk) 10:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Your vehemence against considering that both are variants of the same dish is such that I have despaired of convincing you and I think this discussion could go on endlessly. But your point lacks foundation if you don't provide tangible proof that Southern Thai people call their own version Kaeng lueang. The Thai text I copied doesn't emphasize that it is a separate dish. In fact the Thai Wikipedia didn't even see the need of a separate article for kaeng lueang. The meaning of the sentence that you interpret as "it is known by everyone as" does not foreclose that in the South it is called otherwise, in fact it could also be taken as proof that kaeng lueang is a practical name for central people to distinguish the southern from the northern variant. Arguments such as "Thai friends say that they are very different" or that "the proportions of the spice mix are different" or that "the addition of a certain ingredient gives it a different taste" could also be used in the context of the Chonburi and Prachuap Khiri Khan variants. Another fact is that Kelantan shares a border with Pattani and their version of the curry there is called Kaeng som. Did they take the name from far away further north? Then why not look for a different name for the Lao variant as well? I too have asked many people, but with an open mind and without any ethnocentrism or previous bias against southerners, and what is clear is that the name kaeng lueang is used in central Thailand and that it is of a relatively recent origin, adopted as communication within the country improved. Besides, it is not only Leela Punyaratabandhu who say that Southerners keep calling their own variant kaeng som regardless of what in other places of Thailand their version is called, check for example these links (and there are many more) supporting the fact that even in Bangkok some restaurant owners call it "Southern Style Kaeng Som" instead of "Kaeng Lueang" Delightful southern Thai food in Bangkok Sour (Kang Som) Curry Paste (100 g) by Mae Sri, Southern Thai Food, Chote Chitr & How To Make: (Southern Style) Kaeng Som. Thus even in some places away from the south the name "Southern style kaeng som" is used instead of kaeng lueang (a person from Chumphon said: "Kaeng som is a popular dish for us but we cook it in our own way", so "variant", "version" or "style" does not mean that one stems from the other). Your lack of neutrality and proportion resides in the insistence that these are two totally separate dishes without consideration to the preferences of southern Thais since you do not provide tangible proof; it has nothing to do with me being somehow "against you" as you seem to interpret it by brandishing POV against me in return. In fact I like your work in Wikipedia about Thai cuisine very much and I am interested in knowing more for you have knowledge in areas that I don't have. The only think I asked for is for citations. Xufanc (talk) 07:26, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

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Translation

What does "kaeng som" mean literally? Thank you. Maikel (talk) 11:08, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Kaeng is generally translated as 'curry', while som has a dual meaning, both 'sour' and 'orange', as in both the fruit and the colour. The original meaning is probably 'sour curry', but in modern Thai it could also literally mean 'orange curry' (and this latter translation also matches some other colour-named curries, so it's hard to say which is the better one). --Paul_012 (talk) 13:41, 24 July 2022 (UTC)