Eat To Live: Cabbages and condoms pair up

BANGKOK, May 29 (UPI) -- There are more than 50,000 places to eat in Bangkok. That's nearly one for every 100 people who live in Thailand's capital.

But if you only have the chance to go to one, pick Cabbages & Condoms. It will give you more to discuss back home than the classic Thai dishes and regional food on its menu.

You might imagine, in a city known for its sex trade, that this is a sleazy venture. The Bangkok branch is only one of five with the same name around Thailand that include a branch at a major resort down on the east coast beach at Pattaya.

They are all the "babies" of former Thai Minister of Health Mechai Viravaidya.

Born in Australia to a Scottish mother and a Thai father, Viravaidya came to Thailand in the 1960s to work on population control.

In 1974, he founded the Population and Community Development Association, a non-profit to promote family planning and reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. In 1986, he became deputy minister of industry, and in 1991, minister of the prime minister's office responsible for a curious mixed bag: tourism, information, sports, economic cooperation, zoological gardens, and AIDS prevention coordination.

All proceeds from Cabbages & Condoms go back into the PCDA, and go towards teaching HIV/AIDS education, prevention and treatment and family planning in villages and towns around the country.

In Thailand, prostitution is widespread. It offers one of the few reliable sources of income for women who have no education or training to support their families and for children who have been separated from or lost theirs.

Viravaidya believes birth control should be as cheap as vegetables, with condoms as widespread and accepted as cabbages, a staple of northeast Thailand.

A line on the Cabbages & Condoms menu trumpets the message, "Our food is guaranteed not to cause pregnancy," a theme echoed on T-shirts for sale in the souvenir shop, next to bunches of what at first look like plastic flowers but whose petals turn out to be condoms.

The restaurant walls are hung with cartoon posters of condoms designed to reflect their wearer's profession, repeated on the stair carpet. The admiral's is navy blue with gold braid designs, the chef's rounds off in a toque. The fool's is open at both ends.

An impressively large display of condoms from around the globe in all manner of shapes and sizes adds further wall decoration. Bowls of condoms sit on the table by the door under a sign that says, "Sorry, we have no mints. Please take a condom instead." They come with the bill for the meal.

But there's nothing sleazy about the restaurant. The food is as rewarding as Viravaidya's crusade has been.

At the peak of his education drive, there were 16,000 volunteers going through villages to spread his message around the country. In 1974, the average number of children per family was 7. Now it is 2. Population growth in the 1970s was running at 3.2 percent a year. By the mid-1990s, it was down to 1.2 percent and is currently 0.7 percent.

Since the 1990s, despite its thriving sex trade and widespread problems of drug use and addiction, Thailand has seen a drop in HIV infection rates.

Now, if you want to buy a condom in Thailand, Mechai, Viravaidya's first name, has become the popular slang word for one.

Like restaurants all over the country, Cabbages & Condoms serves Tom Yam Goong seafood soup. In Thailand, all dishes are served at the same time, so soup is sipped throughout the meal.

--Serves 4

--4 prawns per person, peeled

--2 cups water or chicken stock

--5-6 fresh red chilies, crushed

--1 stalk fresh lemongrass, smashed with the side of a cleaver

--3 Kaffir lime leaves (from Asian markets)

--3 pieces of galangal (or ginger root), sliced 1/8 inch thin

--2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

--2 tablespoons Nam Pla fish sauce

--1 teaspoon sugar

--1/2 cup small mushrooms, thinly sliced

--1 plum tomato cut in quarters then across in half

--1 tablespoon fresh cilantro leaves roughly chopped

--4 scallions, cut on the diagonal in 1-inch slices

--Put the lemongrass and galangal into a pan with the water or stock and boil 2 minutes until they turn yellow, then discard the pieces reserving the liquid.

--Add everything else except the prawns, cilantro and scallions and stir.

--Add the prawns then the lime juice, cilantro and scallions and serve in individual bowls.