Thai Food as a Cultural Product

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Thai Food as a Cultural Product Thai cuisine is well known throughout the world for its spicy flavors and unique combination of tastes and textures. It reflects how Thailand absorbed many cultural influences to the country and translated it to something uniquely Thai (Padoongpatt, 2011). However, people eat Thai food in foreign countries, mistaking it for authentic Thai food, but what they’re eating is actually an inaccurate representation of the Thai culinary art. The Beginnings of Thai Food Although Thai food consists of various types of dishes and several different exotic flavors, it all started out with a basic combination of glutinous rice and fermented fish, or as the Thai people call it, khaaw nieo and plaadaek. Khaaw nieo and plaadaek have been an essential part of Thai life since the early 13th century Sukhothai period (Lefferts, 2005). In those days, if one had a rice field filled with rice, fish and other consumable plants, one could be self-sufficient (Lefferts, 2005). Rice Rice is a very important part of the Thai culture. In the Rattanakosin period, also known as the agricultural period of Thailand’s early civilization, the environment played a significant role in human life (Ananthawong, 1989). The environment produced food such as rice and fruits for the people to eat (Sarasas, 1960). This was also the time when people started planting rice and becoming self-sufficient. In the days of the Sukhothai period, it was vital that everyone took care of their rice fields because if they neglected it, it would be as if they were insulting the goddess of rice (Ananthawong, 1989). Furthermore, ‘to eat’ in the Thai language is ‘kin kaaw’, which literally means ‘to eat rice’ (Klausner, 1983). Glutinous rice or kaaw nieo was also more abundant in Thailand than boiled rice or kaaw suay. This is because it was well adapted for the monsoon climate in

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