Green Papaya Salad

All over the Thai kingdom, this cool, sharp, spicy, crunchy, and crazy salad has folks lined up, waiting patiently for the som tum vendor. Stiff shreds of unripe papaya, wilted in a mortar by blows from a sturdy pestle and dressed with an essence of fish sauce, lime juice, tomatoes, and sugar, goes with sticky rice, with garlicky grilled chicken, with anything Issahn, and with nothing but a spoon. Composed salads have their place, but give me som tum, that pungent little haystack of Thai fl