Finding Mae/ food memoir by Penny Freel

Squinting into the sun, I would scan the gaggle of sunseekers and swimmers for a sighting. “There!” I would say to my partner. She would emerge from far down Koh Samui’s Chaweng Beach, an apparition she seemed at first, heading our way out of the silence of the sea spray and the sun glint sand. Her uniform was always the same: a tall-crowned straw hat, a blue denim shirt, a pair of black slacks, and flip-flop shod feet. She would take small sturdy steps along the water’s edge, balancing the weight of the double-basket shoulder carrier with graceful ease, minding her way around beach walkers and sunbathers, stopping to show quizzical foreigners what food offerings she was carrying. Most every day, she journeyed with her baskets of food up and down the beach.

I would spot her, she would see me, and we would call to each other in semaphores and announce our intent. I was Madame, my partner was Papa, and she was known to the beachgoers as the Chicken Lady. She knew just a bit of English; I knew even less Thai, but with time, we managed to tell each other our stories. Her name was Mae.

She hailed from the Isaan region of northeast Thailand. The promise of making money had beckoned her to Koh Samui. From our conversations and stick figure drawings in the sand, she knew I was from the United States but worked in Japan, and I learned her son and daughter lived in Bangkok with relatives and attended school.

Mae’s Gai Yang (grilled chicken) and Som Tom (papaya salad) spoke of simplicity but tasted of Samui breezes and sea air, of freshly cut pineapple and sweet mango. It was Isaan cuisine by way of Koh Samui.

In one of her baskets, she carried a small bowl-shaped metal charcoal grill, along with a flat board to keep the grill on top of the basket. The skewered grilled chicken pieces— breasts, gizzards, necks, and feet poked upright on bamboo skewers and were nestled along the fringes of the coals. Mae allowed Papa to heat our chicken pieces on the stoked coals, encouraging him to find the hot spot on the grill, giggling as she watched him turn the skewers. Over time, I was able to recreate the taste of her lemon grass, nam pla, and garlic marinade for grilled chicken. But it was the Som Tom that bewitched my taste buds.

Som Tom has its roots in northern Thailand and Laos. It is not for those who are weak at heart or balk at the taste of fiery food. A cast iron stomach is needed to tolerate the Thai bird chilis. The first time I tasted it, Mae watched me expectantly, laughing as I rocked back on my heels and managed to smile between gasps. The second time, I was a convert. The third time and from then on, I watched her like a hawk, trying to remember each movement of her machete as she made grooves in the mountain papaya repeatedly, turning it in her hand until she was able to cut off the papaya flesh into paper thin strips. Next, Mae would mince garlic over the strips, then hold out a handful of chilis so I could practice my counting: Nung, Song, Same, See, Ha . . . to tell her how many I wanted; then she added the dried shrimp, cherry tomatoes, nam pla, palm sugar, fresh long beans, and kaffir lime juice. Using the back end of the machete handle, she would pound all the ingredients together and finish the salad off with a sprinkling of peanuts.

The taste was culinary wizardry. Occasionally, Mae took a break and sat with us; tipping back her straw hat, smiling into the sun, practicing her English as she nibbled on a piece of papaya, while Papa and I ate our chicken and salad— total contentment.

And then— in what seemed a mere blink of an eye— our overseas assignment ended. Papa and I made one more trip back to Koh Samui, unsure if we would be able to return as often as we had in our years of traveling and eight years of living in Asia. I had to say goodbye to those who had treated me so kindly, especially Mae, who had become dear and familiar.

Just three years later, though, I found myself back on Chaweng Beach. The sea breeze and salt air were reminders of my past visits, but now an underlying aroma of diesel fuel from jet skis and cigar boats along with the heady smell of Bain de Soliel from a much rowdier set of beachgoers with their heart thumping Euro techno music permeated the air. There was beach food but a far different cry from what we had experienced. Koh Samui had been my Brigadoon, but who had I been fooling? Silly, silly me to have thought otherwise. Nothing stays the same.

I looked for Mae, but she had disappeared. Perhaps she went back to northern Thailand or made a new life with her family in Bangkok. I asked and asked but I never found out. I even went to other beaches—Lamai and Bo Phut, hoping to see her, but no luck. The locals just shrugged their shoulders and went about their business. Such is life their shrugs spoke. Mai pen rai, Madame. Mae, along with others, had become part of the fabric of my Koh Samui life. I would breathe a sigh of relief when I would spot her, or Tony, or Bee, or Nan . . . those gentle guarantors and guardians of my Koh Samui well-being. Some had remained; others, like Mae, had moved on.

As did I. I never returned to the island. Distance and obligations prevented me. Many years have passed, and the carefree why not try shrugs between Papa and I are fewer and farther in between. They are all but gone now, replaced by more cautionary and lonely stances. Now and then, I catch myself daydreaming. My everyday sameness slips away: I step back in time, back onto Koh Samui sand. I find Mae.

My lunches with Papa and Mae had been happy moments— unfettered, slower, less fraught with demands, gentler and easier on the spirit, body, and mind. And I know, from ingredients to cooking methods to the final taste, food is a powerful language easily understood, if only we choose to listen. How could I have ever thought a lunch made by Mae, the Chicken Lady, be anything other than simply aroi? Simply delicious.

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