Northern Thai cuisine The northern people have penchant for medium cooked food with a touch of salty tastes almost to the exclusion of sweet and sour tastes. Meat preferred by the northern people is pork followed by beef, chicken. duck, bird etc. Sea food is the least known on account of the remoteness of the northe In region from the sea. Thai food of the north does not lack in varieties. These are dishes to be consumed at different times of the day. The northern breakfast known in the local dialect as khao grai consisting mainly of steamed glutinous rice or sticky rice (khaw neaw) cooked in the early hours of the day, steamed stutinous rice is packed in a wicker basket made from bamboo splints or palmyra palm leaves. The farmer takes the packed basket to the working rice field and eat the glutinous rice as lunch, known in the dialect as "khaw tom". Dinner or "klaw lang is an familiar affair is served on raised wooden tray or kan toke". The tray which is about 15 to 30 inches in diameter is painted in red.