Isaan Icon · Pounded Papaya Salad

Som Tam (Green Papaya Salad)

Photo: Sumit Surai / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Original Lao-style som tam is punishingly hot and sour, built on fermented fish sauce (padaek) — Thai vendors quietly dial back the funk and add peanuts and extra sugar to make the milder version most visitors actually taste.

Shredded green papaya is pounded in a clay mortar with garlic, chilies, tomatoes, palm sugar, fish sauce and lime juice, often with dried shrimp or crab thrown in. Vendors mix it to order, tasting and adjusting until the balance of sour, salty, sweet and spicy is exactly right.

Why it's made this way: The salad traveled into Isaan from Laos with the region's ethnic Lao population and only reached Bangkok's mainstream in the mid-20th century via migrant workers, who brought the region's other staple, sticky rice, along with it.