Thai Gem Cooking Class

Carol Clark (formerly of Jewel Siam) writes:

With gem chef kwanmuang "Gow" Bumrungpanichtarworn

Today's recipe: Mong Hsu Rubies

My grandmother tried to teach me to cook once. The trouble was, she cooked by instinct, not by any precise formula. Her skill in biscuit making came from years of making those same biscuits every day. A pinch of this, a pinch of that—with adjustments for variations in the weather or her mood—kneaded to just the right consistency with her hands, and thrown in the oven. A seemingly simple exercise, but nobody's biscuits were as light, as fluffy or as satisfying as the ones she made.

Kwanmuang Bumrungpanichtarworn also cooks by instinct. Better known as Gow (Chinese for "dog"), he is a famous chef from Chantaburi. His specialty: corundum. Through high temperature dark, lifeless stones into the kind of rubies and sapphires that gem lovers hunger for.

In spite of his expertise, he has his disaster stories. "One time we lost B3 million (US$120,000)," he recalls. "I put B12 million worth of stones in one crucible and was heating it when there was a power surge, which changed the temperature. I ended up with B8-9 million worth of stones."

As one of Chantaburi's top "burners," Gow has long experience with cooking most kinds of rubies, but he doesn't mind a new challenge. When Burma's Mong Hsu material began inundating the Thai market a little more than a year ago he set to work with his oven. After three months of experimenting, going through about 10 kilograms worth of material, Gow said he felt confident working with Mong Hsu rough.

As any great chef will tell you, choosing your ingredients is critical to the success of your recipe. Gow is very selective about the stones he buys for cooking. He has identified five different patterns of color zoning in Mong Hsu rubies and knows exactly how each of them will react in his oven.

Scientists have determined that the blue-to-black core found inside Mong Hsu rubies contains high concentrations of titanium. Gow does not know this. All he knows is how to turn the black to red.

"The Mong Hsu rubies come from a mountain, an extinct volcano," he says. "Almost every piece is a crystal with black inside. I think they were heated by lava and then cooled from the inside out. Mogok rubies sometimes have black on the outside. They formed by cooling from the outside in. I'm not sure about this, it's just my idea. I think this and I burn the stones very well."