Palm sugar

unt Pranee, whose diminutive build does not easily mesh with her name meaning "cosmic energy", is fixing me somtam, a fiery salad of shredded unripe papaya. For many years that I spent in Thailand it became my staple food. In a hot climate like there your body craves a spicy kick to perk itself up, and somtam fulfils that function perfectly. In goes a staggering variety of ingredients: from pickled fresh-water crabs and fried peanuts to hog plum and fish sauce. What looks like fossilized mini-piles of blonde poop turns out to be sugar. Thai food is a balance of sweet, sour, spicy and tart so palm sugar was responsible for the sweetneess in somtam.

In Thailand palm sugar is made mostly from the sap of the coconut palm, so it may sometimes be confusingly sold as "coconut sugar" or "palm honey" while, in fact, it has nothing to do with coconut fruits or bees. Depending on the degree of processing, the colour may vary from pale beige to hearty honey brown.

It definitely brings in more complex flavour than refined sugar. It is also less sweet and it adds honey-like mellow mildness to whatever you put it into. In the countries where it is common, it is sold in huge dollops that are dirt-cheap. In Europe I buy it in miniature stacks of neat rounds encircled in strips of bamboo wood (as on the picture).