Thailand and Food

Thai cooking is a singular cuisine that is easily distinguished even from its nearest neighbors. Yet this distinctiveness is not the result of an insular, unaccommodating attitude that refuses novel ideas and dismisses new ingredients. Throughout Thailand's long history, the resilience of the culture has allowed it to accept the unfamiliar without fear of compromise. The incorporation of the chili into the cuisine is a most potent example of this. In Europe, it took 200 years for the tomato to be considered anything more than a poisonous apple, yet Siamese cuisine completely absorbed the chili within a century. And now Thai cooking is inconceivable without it.

The true genius of Thai cuisine is its ability to incorporate the unfamiliar, whether it be ingredient or technique, and absorb it so completely that it becomes an integral component; to 'Siam-ise' it to a degree that it becomes indistinguishable from the indigenous. Th history and character of the Thai have afforded this extraordinary systhesis of cooking, ingredients and circumstances to create a vital cuisine that is the embodiment of a remarkable people and their culture.

Thai food is intertwined with all aspects of Thai culture. Since ancient times, dishes that have been offered to the many gods and spirits that inhabited the Thai world and the Thai psyche. Such offerings placated the deities and ensured their aid in times of uncertainty. Today no celebration is complete without a meal, and the offering of food to monks is a sure way to obtain merit. Food offers more than nourishment alone; it is sustenance for the country and the soul.

The diverse terrain of Thailand imposes its own marked characteristics on the cooking. The many physical barries - uplands, mountains, deep ravies, rivers and ragged coastlines - are set in a landscape that was, until only recently, sparsely populated. These factors have inevitably led to vast regional differences in culture and cuisine. Only in the late nineteenth century did the idea of a united country begin to develop; before then, Thailand was the sum of its many parts.

Rice plays a pivotal role in Thailand: its cultivation has altered the countryside and created a culture that is uniquely Thai. This primacy is reflected at the Thai table where, no matter how refined, delicate or complex dishes may be, they are merely accompaniments to the rice. Without rice, a meal would be incomprehensible - and Thailand, as it is today, would not exist.

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- Adapted from Thai Food, by David Thompson