Khao tom

Variants

This dessert can be either savoury (filled with pork fat and mung bean) or sweet (filled with coconut milk and banana). In Thailand, Khao tom is sometimes colored blue with Clitoria ternatea flowers.

The Khao tom variety with black beans is known as khao tom mat (ข้าวต้มมัด).

Traditions

The Sai Krachat tradition (ประเพณีใส่กระจาด), also known as Suea Krachat or Soe Krachat in Phuan language is a merit-making Buddhist tradition of the Thai Phuan people of in Ban Mi District, Lopburi Province. It takes place on the eve of the Great Birth Sermon celebration. One day prior to the Sai Krachat Day, people wrap khao tom and grind rice for khao pun rice noodles. The next day is the Sai Krachat Day when people bring things such as bananas, sugar cane, oranges, candles, and joss sticks or other items to put into the bamboo baskets at the houses of the people they know, while the hosts bring the prepared food to welcome their guests. When the visitors wish to go home, the host gives khao tom mat as a souvenir in return called Khuen Krachat.

In Thailand, khao tom mat is the symbol of couples because the couple are matched and bound together with thin bamboo-strip (string). Thai people believe that if a pair of people offer khao tom mat to monks on Khao Phansa Day, which is beginning of the 3 months of Buddhist lent during the rainy season and the time when monks retreat to a monastery and concentrate on Buddhist teachings, married life will be smooth and there will be a stable love like a pair of khao tom mat.

Khao tom mat is also a traditional Thai dessert for Ok Phansa Day (the end of Buddhist lent in late October.), but it is then called Khao tom luk yon (Thai: ข้าวต้มลูกโยน). It is wrapped up in a young mangrove fan palm leaf (Thai: ใบกะพ้อ) with long-tails to hold before tossing them to a Buddha image, after which monks can carry them away.