9) Do turn down food that you don’t eat. If you don’t eat spicy food, animal’s internal organs or skin and they were offered to you, politely turn down the offer. When it comes to food, you can be straightforward with the Thais, telling them your preference. They understand and are willing to accommodate you. (TRE 2)
10) Do help your neighbors with the food serving, making sure that people around you get some of the food before you pass on the serving dish. (TRE 3)
11) Do separate the pieces of spices, skin, fat, bones, etc. that you don’t eat and leave them on your plate or in a bowl provided by the restaurant to collect trash. This bowl usually is put on the table, just as in many seafood restaurants here. (TRE 2)
Included in many dishes you may find stalks of lemongrass, pieces of torn kaffir lime leaves, slices or chunks of galangal root, chunks of cilantro root, or chicken, pork or fish bones, fish heads and other inedible parts. These are not intended for you to consume. They’re there to add flavor to the soup or the meat, so feel free to pick them out. The skin of chicken, pork or fish is another story. The Thai love them, so if you don’t eat them you can leave them on the serving plate, but read #33 first. Try your best not to take them onto your plate and then discard them, because someone else might want them and they can’t pick through the garbage bowl or your bowl. My husband does that all the time and my friends always give grievous looks at the morsel, and probably think that my husband is wasteful or doesn’t know any better. (I think it’s both!)
12) Do eat slowly. Thais like to spend a lot of time over meals, exchanging conversation with families and friends. Mealtime is a leisure time and should not be rushed. My grandmother always called me on this when I wanted to finish my meal fast and go play. (TRE 4)
13) Do eat sticky rice by rolling it into a ball with your fingers, while picking up a piece of other food with your fingers in your right hand. Only use the tip of your fingers, no more than two knuckles from the tip, to touch foods. Normally when you eat food in this manner you will get a bowl of water at the end to wash your hands. (TRE 1)
14) Do make sure that you don’t drop food on the table, especially from your own plate. There is a Thai word, pronounced “Whan Na”, which means “scattering the rice grains”, used to describe the action of a person who eats and lets food, especially rice, fall around the sides of their plate. (TRE 5)
Whan Na is actually the action of the real farmer throwing grains of rice around to spout on the rice field. This used to be my husband’s nickname among my friends and my cousins’ kids in Thailand. The server would lift his plate after he finished his meal and right there on the table would be a ring of rice where his plate was. I have to warn you that the plate that you would have in front of you is a personal plate, and normally is about the size of a salad plate, not a full-sized dinner plate. So you will have to operate on much smaller real estate for your meal, but remember, you’re taking small portions of everything.
15) Do spit bones, fat, herbs, etc. out of your mouth into a napkin, then wrap and hide it underneath your plate or add it to the trash bowl on the table, or under the table if they are available. If napkins aren’t available then cover your mouth with your left hand, spit the bone out on your spoon and place it in the trash bowl unless it’s not available then place the piece at the far corner of your plate and operate as if that piece is a pile of dirt (don’t let the food that you will put in your mouth next ever touch it…ewwwww) We don’t put things that came out of our mouth back on our