Gastronomy Tourism: Lanna Gastronomy
Decoding Northern style food to be “Lam-Lam” by Food Innovation.
Not just foreigners, even Thai people may have a question about what “Lam-Lam” is. It is a mixture of similar sounds from the Thai word and northern dialect which means "extraordinary" and "mouthwatering". When traveling around in Thailand, especially in Chiang Mai, the traveler would have seen or even tried many menus of the northern food, but they would have never known or heard of these menus: the fusion foods created by the concept of “Lanna Gastronomy”.
Due to the outbreaks of Covid-19, the economy fell into a recession. Consequently, the Thai government wants to rely on local products and aims to boost purchasing power by diverting a budget of 400 billion baht through many stimulus measures. The Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council has allocated 49 million baht for starting the Gastronomy Tourism: Lanna Gastronomy Project, which aims to generate income for the region. The project is funded by the Food Innovation and Packaging Center (FIN), Chiang Mai University. FIN is working to improve the northern food and products using Chiang Mai province as the Northern base for this region.
FIN is an expert organization that provides many services related to food and packaging innovation to the public and private sectors, as a one-stop service for many years, especially in the northern area. Their office is on the third floor of the Agro-Industrial Faculty, Chiang Mai University. They are modest but they play a crucial role in the success of many businesses and entrepreneurs in Chiang Mai and around Thailand. They cooperate with various firms and organizations in solving the food and packaging problems and create innovative foods.
The first product the Gastronomy Tourism: Lanna Gastronomy Project introduced is “Lum Rice Cocoball”. The Cocoball is created by the coordination between FIN and “Brand New Field Good” restaurant whose owners are “Khun New and Khun Pek”. The dessert is made from CMU.107 purple rice, a range of rice types that are distributed to farmers for farming in Thailand. This is not the first time that FIN has helped not only the business but also the farmers. Furthermore, FIN worked on transferring CMU technology to the private business sector under the product name P80 Natural Essence made from longan which helped many longan farmers who were confronted with the market surplus. This time, it is another big challenge for FIN to use their expertise in food innovation and technology to help the resumption of Thailand tourism and domestic public and private-sector after COVID-19.
Consequently, more creative and innovative food menus are developed almost at the same time. They are “Jin Kai Jelly Cube” (Northern Style Spicy Chicken Jelly Cube), “Jin Som Meringue” (Sour Sausage Meringue), Chiang Mai Khao Soi Ice-cream, Khao Soi in Suay, Sparkling Aun-Chun Extract, and “Wiang Ping Sphere” (Craft Cold brew Rose Tea).
FIN created these menus with scientific research involving food preparation while maintaining qualities of human nutrition. They studied how nutrition relates to the broader culture. Furthermore, every menu is from local-based ingredients. It can be said that they’ve applied both art and science very diligently on every menu. They had an opportunity to showcase their achievements at the “Visit Chiang Mai – I miss you” exhibition held in June 2020. They showcased gastronomy technologies, for example, using liquid nitrogen with coconut milk to top the ice cream and making the mini "spheres" from the rose extract, which gives a similar texture to caviar. The rose tea spheres is a menu born from the coordination between FIN and the local business, “Raming Tea”. They manage to launch it as a new product after COVID-19.
Welcome to the New Lanna Cultural Food Tourism.
Like other tourist cities around the world, Chiang Mai is also affected by COVID-19. That made Associate Professor Yuthana Phimolsiripol. Ph.D. develop a project named “Gastronomy Tourism: Lanna Gastronomy “Chiang Mai-I miss you” and presented it to The Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council to help improve the tourism industry post-Covid-19. Dr. Yuthana briefly mentioned the concept idea of this project that the distinct objective of this project is to make new menus using Chiang Mai's local ingredients. The new menus will attract people to travel to Chiang Mai, transforming Chiang Mai to become a city of Gastromy culture, combining science and local ingredients in perfect harmony.
“FIN and the Thai government, have clearly seen the negative impact from COVID-19 in several dimensions. That is the reason why we came up with this project. Since the tourism industry is one of the main stream that drives Thailand’s economy. Usually, people travel more at an increasing rate, but now it plateued with the COVID-19 pandemic. We think that the capability of Thai entrepreneurs needs to be adapted to the new era of business operation, boosting the economy after Covide-19 in the other ways. Northern region has its own traditions, knowledge and wisdom reflecting lively in their people’s behaviors, health care, handcraft, food, etc. When we look at ourselves, we’re confident to say that we’re experts in food innovation practice which can be considered as the midstream of the process and we’re willing to help as much as we can. We discussed this to various key authority both regional and central government agents and officers. They all agreed that we should integrated them, upstream, midstream and downstream, all into the same boat, so that we can start cruising to help Thailand together.”
“We start focusing on Chiang Mai as an initial project because of its many restaurants and food ingredients. We have to address the questions of how to attract the tourist, how to select each local ingredient with potential health benefit and how to create new menu with creativity and innovation. These questions enable us to come out with new creative menus, new style that becomes a new signature of the Thai northern region. In the future when the tourists return to Chiang Mai they must request to have 'Lum Rice' and ask about which restaurant has it. This will be the prototype to create the new creative and innovative food. It is not only delicious, has good appearance but it shows the sincerity from the farmers to the consumers.” He said.
The objective to develop the Chiang Mai province to become the city of Lanna Cultural Food Tourism New Style has focused on improving all aspects: upstream, midstream, and downstream.
Upstream has been targeting the farmers which are operated by the faculty of Agriculture, Chiang Mai University, with the concept “Molecular Agriculture” to promote the local Lanna plant or livestock farming to sustain the ingredients for Lanna Gastronomy food. For example, Chiang Da vegetable is the local plant in the north, the farmer carefully cultivates it with full nutrient and food safety. Moreover, it is traceable. This will be value-added to agricultural products and developing food agricultural innovation. Dr. Yuthana has explained this idea as follows:
“You’ll see nowadays there are many 'Chef’s Tables' popping up around the country. This is the story of creativity and value-added that relates to the upstream which we call Molecular Agriculture. People may ask for a specific kind of food nutrient they need for specific purpose. The upstream has to think of how to enable the farmer to be capable of planting and getting the result according to the people’s need or restaurant’s requirement. In the scope of Molecular Agriculture, we will support the farmer by enabling with technology and creating 'contact farming' with them. This will solve the problem for the farmers who many times are faced with the problem of market lacking or price decline. The farmers will now know from the beginning that they are planting for whom and how to plant it correctly. Our team from the Faculty of Agriculture Chiang Mai University and Mae Jo University will train them closely and practically.”
Midstream is the “Gastronomy Food Coding”. It is applied to Lanna Food Innovation to develop northern or Lanna food with a scientific attempt to promote them to a Michelin Star which FIN and the Faculty of Agro-Industrial, Chiang Mai University is responsible for managing every activity related to supporting its purposes such as arranging the training or seminars to the public or target audience so that they can increase their capability in terms of creating value-added food menus by using local ingredients, and practicing good food hygiene and safety. These training courses at local restaurants in Chiang Mai will lead them to the international standards. The project selects 100 restaurants in Chiang Mai to participate. They work together in creating Lanna food innovation by using local plant ingredients.
Lastly, MICE and the Faculty of Economics, Chiang Mai University is responsible for the downstream procedure under the concept of “Chiang Mai Food Destination”. To make Chiang Mai the top travel destination as a food haven, they have created “The Creative LANNA Gastronomy ATLAS” which is a map of famous restaurants in Chiang Mai that provide Gastronomy Lanna Food from this project. Moreover, they also develop more travel activities related to food around many areas such as food exhibitions in CMU Square, Nimmanhaemin road.
“Eating is a BIG deal”
From innovation to sustainability
“Eating is a big deal” is the phrase that Thai people used for ages.
Especially when they travel to a new place, they often search for local food and try new or famous ones. This project has been exceptional in attracting the target audiences, above all, they integrate all stakeholders from upstream to downstream into the development process to benefit all parties: farmers, communities, social, and tourism industry in Chiang Mai. This is how FIN can make sustainable development a reality. Dr. Yuthana has concluded that:
“This project may start from the gimmick of food cultural tourism but at the end, the sustainability will be delivered to the farmer and the root community. For example, we have developed 20 new products from local ingredients and Chiang Mai University has the technology Lum I-on rice that can be harvested 2-3 times more than the general production when compare to the same field size and energy investment for plantation. Consequently, the farmers are willing to farm using this technology as they can get more income with the same cost. Although nowadays what the world is facing is the fall of the travel industry but we believe that after Covid-19, the demand for travel will rise. So, if we create and improve food tourism in Chiang Mai, it will promote the sustainability of the tourism. During the Covid-19 pandemic, many restaurants were affected and some had to shut down. This project will give them the opportunity to stand again. Even the interested public who participates in this project training program will be able to apply what they have learned to their new business development in the future. Finally, we strongly think of this project as a way to sustainability for the community, social, farmers and tourism industry sector.”
Lum Rice Cocoball, Jin Kai Jelly Cube, Jin Som Meringue, Chiang Mai Khao Soi Ice-cream, Khao Soi in Suay, Sparkling Aun-Chun Extract, and Wiang Ping Sphere, from the creative development, the FIN center, is more than food. Rather, it is the decoding of Lanna food to be "Lam" and "Lum" with food innovation to make Chiang Mai a truly new Lanna food cultural tourism city the northern style food to be “Lam-Lam” by Food Innovation and Packaging Center (FIN).