Thompson was supposed to collect 100 recipes for his book, but already has 450 and expects to add another 200 before he's done.

"When I told my publisher, she promptly ordered a second bottle of wine - to dull the pain, not to celebrate," quips Thompson, an Australian whose Thai restaurant in London, Nahm, holds one Michelin star.

He expects that half the recipes - the best ones - will be in his book when it's published next year.

"I'm only six months late, so I'm doing well," he says. His original tome, the award-winning "Thai Food", was three years late. It grew from a modest project into a book that is as big as the Bible, and includes a history of Thailand, its food and culture, the fundamentals of Thai cooking and hundreds of recipes, from curry pastes to side dishes to drinks and desserts.

"Food From the Streets and Markets of Thailand", the new book's working title, will chronicle the development of street and market food, which began evolving in the 1850s with the arrival of Chinese immigrants.

"They brought their eating habits and their culture, but rarely brought their wives," Thompson notes. Noodles, fish dumplings, yellow beans and many duck dishes are Chinese. Chopsticks, of course, are an import.

Market food was Thai in origin, Thompson says. Rice with shrimp paste, or kapi, papaya salad or somtam and curries were made by local women and sold in the markets and in shops, giving them some degree of independence in the late 1890s.

No definitive, nation-wide study of street and market food has ever been attempted in Thailand. However, Thompson and his partner Tanongsak Yordwai have so far spent about four months travelling throughout the kingdom researching the book.

"Some of the best food we've come across has been outside Bangkok," says Thompson, who's keeping his favourite stalls a secret, at least until the book's published.

Hal Lipper

The Nation