Wok On!

The humble wok is seen everywhere in Thailand and abroad – but where did it come from?

Let’s flash-back to about 1,000 years ago. This was the period when the Tai people from the Yunnan district of China began to expand their trade southwards into Asia. And when the Mongol hordes invaded, a century or so later, there was a mass exodus into what is now called Thailand. These people were essentially Chinese, and formed the gene pool which went on to establish the first Siamese kingdom of Sukhothai, in 1238. And they brought with them not only their language and religion (both of which were to change in later years) but also numerous types of rice and wheat noodles, soya beans, oyster sauce . . . and the wok.

Anyone with a practical mind will find it hard to imagine what’s so special about the wok. Ever since the Iron Age, mankind has been refining ore, and melting and shaping metal for every conceivable purpose. And that includes cooking. Flat pans with raised edges to contain the contents and the fat were used for frying. Bowls and pots were used to hold liquids. But for some strange reason nobody, anywhere, seemed to have previously made a utensil that was half-way between the two.

In actual fact the wok was popularised by those same nomadic Mongol tribes who created so much havoc in southern China. If they didn’t actually invent it, they certainly latched onto it, adopted it, and travelled with it, spreading its popularity everywhere they went. It was an ideal multi-pot for solids and liquids, you could make an entire meal in just one pot, and it was easy to clean and carry. In fact you can measure the success of the wok by how quickly the idea spread. It was unknown outside of China – there are no examples anywhere – until around the year 1300. And thereafter it began to appear in Burma, The Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia and, eventually Japan, all under different names. They all mean ‘Chinese pot’ in translation, however. Even in the original Mandarin, ‘wok’ means simply ‘cooking pot’.

The wok was designed to be pushed firmly and with stability into an uneven bed of hot coals or embers – any sort of a fire would do. Traditional-style pots, on the other hand, needed to be hung over the fire using some kind of support or tripod. The wok had no flat surfaces and was deep enough to allow the food that was cooking to be scraped up the sides and down again – by design the whole wok became equally as hot all over, unlike flat-bottomed pans with sides. In its earliest incarnation the wok had two small side grips.

But this quickly evolved into one long handle that was far enough away from the fire to stay cool and allowed the cook to toss the food. Examples found of woks from the 15th century, show detachable handles that allowed for easier packing and transport, ideal for nomadic communities.

Another thing about the wok: it was made of heavy cast iron, as were all other utensils at that time, hence the advantage of having only one cooking pot. But it was also used for frying, using natural animal fats. Cast iron rusts quickly. But it was soon discovered that woks didn’t – as long as you didn’t scrape them completely clean. If you left them oiled with the residue of the cooking fat, over time the added high temperature and continued cooking built up a surface that bonded with the cast iron – a sort of medieval non-stick Teflon. And even today, cast-iron skillets and woks are carefully primed in this way until they are considered to have been broken-in and become ‘seasoned’. Indeed, some families are proud to be using woks that have been passed from generation to generation.

Today – some 700 years later – that humble saddle-bag cooking pot, the wok, is used all around the world. Although with today’s social stability, and with kitchens full of pots and pans, it’s now almost universally used only for stir fries. The undisputed experts in wok cooking are the street vendors of Asian food markets (and the Asian communities in other countries). These are the people who spend up to 15 hours every day slaving over a hot wok, churning out dish after dish, non-stop at lightning speed, their hands a blur, for their never-ending ‘fast food’ customers. If you’ve never seen a real one in action, spend a while on YouTube. It’ll be an education.

 But today’s technology has also forced some changes. Woks now come made of not only cast iron, but more-often carbon steel, too. And even stainless steel. Worse, some are even misguidedly Teflon-coated. (Teflon not only scratches readily, but at the high temperatures needed for rapid stir-frying, breaks down and gives off toxic vapour!) The advantage of a cast-iron wok is that it retains heat evenly with no hot-spots, and forms a carbonised, seasoned skin. But this can happen with carbon steel, too, although it has to be especially hand-forged and made out of two layers of bonded steel for this to be effective. The stainless steel ones are much lighter and just as good, having a core of aluminium between two steel outer steel skins. But they’re the most costly of the lot! And I’ve been told that a well-seasoned wok actually imparts its own distinctive flavour to a dish, which just can’t happen with stainless steel.

 In Western kitchens you’ll see other variations too, such as flat-bottomed woks that can stand on the surfaces of electric cooking rings. And no doubt if you look hard enough you’ll find ones which can be used with ceramic induction plates or maybe even microwaves! A pale shadow of the real thing. Get yourself off to Chinatown and soak up the noise, heat and energy of an expert with a wok, with the steam and the flames all around. No contest! This is the heart and soul of the wok speaking to you with a legacy that’s travelled down through the centuries, No two ways about it – wok on!  

Rob De Wet