History of pad Thai: how the stir-fried noodle dish was invented by the Thai government
Source: South China Morning Post
- Thai prime minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram was committed to establishing a national identity to unite the nation through culture in the 1930s
- The campaign included changing the country’s name, commissioning a new national anthem, and creating a national dish – pad Thai
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What they might not be aware of is that the delicious concoction – “Thai stir-fry” in the local vernacular – is not historically a traditional dish in Thailand. Pad Thai’s roots are as political as they are culinary. It was imposed upon the populace almost 80 years ago as a cornerstone ingredient of a nationalistic agenda.
In the late 1930s, Thai prime minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram – one of the leaders who orchestrated an end to the country’s absolute monarchy – was committed to establishing a national identity to unite the nation through culture. Siam, as it was then known, was ethnically diverse, says retired professor Penny Van Esterik, who worked as a nutritional anthropologist at York University in Toronto, Canada.
Van Esterik, who studied Southeast Asia cuisines, became interested in the region when she took part in protests against the Vietnam war, then realised she knew nothing about Vietnam or the region in general.
She signed up as a university volunteer in the region and was sent to Thailand from 1967 to 1969, where she taught English to anthropology and archaeology students. She became intrigued with the country and returned to Canada to pursue a PhD in anthropology in the early 1970s so she could revisit Thailand to conduct more field work. Van Esterik and her husband returned periodically to Thailand for research purposes until 1995.
Educated in France, former field marshal Plaek, better known as Phibun, regarded his home country as backward and was determined to remake it as a strong and nationalistic nation, Van Esterik explains.
He issued 12 cultural mandates, or state decrees, from 1939 to 1942, which included changing the country’s name to Thailand, commissioning music and lyrics for a new national anthem, and dictating that women ditch the pant-like chong kraben and instead wear skirts.
The campaign also mandated the creation of a national dish – pad Thai.
“He simply had this particular version of a Thai noodle that was made by his housekeeper in his kitchen and he really liked it,” Van Esterik says.
“So that dish somehow became standardised. It became almost a prototype for an example of a noodle dish. And from then on, it sort of had a different role. It became a ‘Thai noodle dish’, and [Phibun] was promoting the idea that one should eat it, particularly civil servants, for lunch.”
It was originally called kway teow pad Thai – kway teow being “rice noodles” – and later abbreviated to pad Thai.
(https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3007657/history-pad-thai-how-stir-fried-noodle-dish-was-invented-thai)
