Som Tam is one of our favourite dishes in Thailand. It is a fully rounded raw salad consisting of green papaya, beans, tomatoes, chillies, lime and peanuts although there are a number of other ingredients that can be added to the salad like crushed baby crabs, mini eggplants or even chicken that makes the green papaya salad even tastier.
The shredded green papaya can be replaced with mangoes, bananas, apple or cucumber. You are able to see what versions they have on offer in the stall window like in the photo above. This particular stall was offering green mango Som Tam.
In the video below, you see us ordering and eating Som Tum on Koh Tao, Thailand. We are both really excited about having Som Tam (we always are) but still remembered to ask whether papaya or mango was the base of the salad. Tanya is allergic to mango. Its not a life threatening allergy but its still not pleasant. Despite what we thought had been said it ended up being mango. Damn you, language barrier! Tanya ended up throwing up most of the Som Tam but a couple of anti-histamines later Tanya was raring to go again.
Moral of the story: Make sure you check and double check what you are going to eat if you have food allergies.
We have a recipe for Som Tam that you can find by clicking through here. Enjoy!