Larb.

Thai Community Product Standard TCPS 493/2547 defines it. Priklarb means a product obtained by taking spices and herbs such as dried chilli, shallot, garlic, galangal, lemongrass, makhwaen, long pepper, peppercorn and coriander seed, slicing, chopping or grinding them to the size wanted, drying or dry-roasting them, grinding, mixing them together and then roasting the mixture once more; a little oil may be added. Note the double roast - the components are roasted, and then the blend is roasted again, which is written into the definition rather than being a technique someone recommends. The standard requires a dry powder that does not cake, caps moisture at 12 per cent by weight and water activity at 0.65, caps aflatoxin at 20 micrograms per kilogram, and allows the packet to be labelled either พริกลาบ or ผงลาบ, larb powder. It does not give quantities, so nobody can tell you the ratio from an official source.

For raw freshwater fish, the Ministry of Public Health's answer is no, and it is unusually direct about it. The Department of Disease Control issued a public warning on 4 November 2565 about eating white-scaled freshwater fish raw or lightly cooked. It names raw fish larb among the dishes that carry the risk, alongside koi pla, pla som, raw pla ra, som tam made with raw pla ra, and several others. The risk is Opisthorchis, the liver fluke: the larvae sit in the flesh, the pectoral fin and the scales beneath the fin, and when swallowed they travel to the bile ducts inside the liver, mature and lay eggs. The department states that the parasite can live in a person for up to 30 years, and that chronic infection or repeated reinfection is a major cause of cholangiocarcinoma, cancer of the bile duct. It reports prevalence as highest in the northeast and the north. This page is not medical advice and BAANLYY is not a medical provider; if you have eaten raw freshwater fish, the department's own instruction is to have a stool test at a health service.

No, and the Department of Disease Control singles this belief out to correct it. Its 4 November 2565 warning states that the belief that squeezing lime kills the larvae is a mistaken one, that in reality it has no effect on destroying them at all, and that lime juice merely changes the colour of the flesh. The same warning extends the point: using sour things such as lime juice or tamarind, or salty things such as fish sauce, salt or pla ra brine, does not make food cooked and cannot kill the parasite. The only method that does, in the department's own words, is heat. That is worth holding on to, because the visual cue people rely on - flesh turning opaque in acid - is exactly the cue the department says is meaningless here.

The honest answer is that the government's documents describe two different seasonings without ever telling you which region uses which. TCPS 493/2547 defines a roasted dry spice powder built on dried chilli, galangal, lemongrass, makhwaen, long pepper, peppercorn and coriander seed. A separate standard, TCPS 1381/2562, defines ground roasted rice as its own product: plain or glutinous rice, washed and drained, optionally mixed with kaffir lime leaf, lemongrass or galangal, dry-roasted until crisp, cooled and ground. Neither standard mentions the other, and neither names a region. What the register does show is where the certificates sit: three of the four current holders of the larb spice standard are in Phrae and Lampang, both northern provinces, and the fourth, in Chanthaburi, sells its product under the name larb seasoning powder rather than priklarb. The widely described split - a northern larb seasoned with this spice blend, an Isan larb seasoned with toasted rice powder - is consistent with all of that, but it is an inference from the register rather than something any document states, and we would rather label it that way than dress it up.

The Department of Disease Control describes a progression, and the beginning of it is nothing at all. With a small number of parasites there may be no symptoms whatsoever. Then occasional bloating and flatulence, and a burning sensation in the stomach. After that, loss of appetite, marked bloating, an enlarged liver, and tenderness when the area under the right ribs is pressed. In severe cases: jaundice, yellowing of the eyes, ascites, swelling, and either a low-grade fever or a high one with chills - these usually arising from complications such as the bile duct being obstructed by the parasite, infection of the bile duct or gall bladder, or bile duct cancer, which the department calls the most severe complication of all. Its advice is that anyone with loss of appetite, weight loss, bloating, an enlarged liver, indigestion, colic, a feeling of fullness under the right ribs, or a burning feeling on the skin of the right abdomen or back should see a doctor promptly. Diagnosis is by stool examination for the eggs, or confirmation by immunodiagnostic methods or PCR.

A standard is not a heat treatment, and the two questions are separate. The community product standard register does carry standards for the fermented fish products the health warning names - 37/2557 for pla ra and 26/2569 for pla som - so these are products Thailand specifies rather than ignores. But the Department of Disease Control's warning lists raw pla ra and som tam made with raw pla ra among the risky dishes anyway, and states that salt and fermentation brine do not cook food. Nothing in a product specification changes that. The practical reading: cooked pla ra, boiled into a dressing or a curry, has been through heat; raw pla ra spooned into a papaya salad has not. If you are eating som tam in the northeast or the north and you want the pla ra version, the question worth asking is whether it is cooked.