My last trip to Thailand I visited my girls family in Mukdahan which is in the north eastern area of Thailand also known as Issan. They live in a small village just outside of Mukdahan city that consists of mostly family members.

The houses are traditional Thai houses built of wood with cement floors. The houses are built on teak poles due to flooding during the rainy season. This particular village is right in the flood plane and very close to the Mekong.

While being given the grand tour I thought it odd that I didn’t see a kitchen anywhere on the first floor and definitely not on the second floor. Then when we went outside towards the back of the house I saw another doorway that led to a room not accessible from the inside of the house.

It was then I learned that traditional Thai kitchens were built away from the main house or at the back of the house with no access to the house. Two good reasons for keeping the kitchen separate from the house are making sure heat generated while cooking won’t affect the rest of the house and the smells will also stay put…and there are some smells.

The rural Thai kitchen is a pretty bare affair with just the necessities like a propane burner and one or two small cupboards. The cupboards will have the staples like dried chili’s, fish sauce, and rice. One cupboard I didn’t get a picture of had a saucer of water under each foot which I learned later was to keep ants from getting in…good idea.

Most rural Thai’s don’t own a refrigerator so the shopping is done daily and or they use what they grow. My girls family had small gardens growing vegetables and more than enough chicken and ducks roaming around. They also grow their own rice and mushrooms.

Their kitchen was pretty big but only the area by the door was occupied by the needed cooking implements. Once outside the door you’ll find the kitchen sink…a large clay pot filled with water for cleaning the dishes and your hands. The area next to it was reserved for the coal pots used to cook dinners bbq style.

A traditional Thai kitchen is very simple but it gets the job done well and I can attest to that fact as I left Mukdahan very well fed and I can’t wait to get back.