The Dish: Pad Thai

And where else in the world but Bangkok would one humble plate, available from after-breakfast to after-hours at street stalls, wet markets, four-table mom-and-pops as well as trendy cafes and international hotels, provide the flavors of rice noodles, shrimp, egg, palm sugar, tamarind, lime, tofu, chilies, green onion, chives, bean sprouts, banana flowers, lotus leaf, cilantro and peanut, with vinegar, fish sauce, sometimes ketchup and often more sugar added? And all for about one dollar?

Ubiquitous yet infinitely varied and always filling on the fly, pad thai is to Bangkok what a street-cart hot dog is to New York. Who would choose the latter over the former?

THE HISTORY

Some conjecture that Vietnamese traders brought their light treatment of noodles to Ayutthaya, the nation's capital from 1350 to 1767. But it's certain that Bangkok, the port where the capital was relocated after Ayutthaya fell to the Burmese, was home to a flourishing community of Chinese traders -- and where there are Chinese, there are noodles.

However, the Thai-style noodles did not become properly celebrated or win its current, proud moniker until Field Marshal Pibul Songgram ruled the nation from 1938-44 and 1948-57. A modernizer who changed the country's name to Thailand from Siam and banned the chewing of betel nut, Pibul also promoted the name "pad thai" as a statement of nationalism. Promoting rice noodles and noodle shops was part of a drive to diversify a struggling economy. Little did this tyrant know what a gift he was giving to the future legions of Thai-food fans in America, Europe and Australia.

However, according to long-time Bangkok food writer and expert guide Bob Halliday, local chefs had already embarked on the project of turning their bowl of pasta into something distinctly Southeast Asian -- mainly through the liberal use of tamarind, which, according to Mr. Hallliday, can still be seen in a few stubbornly old-fashioned operations that continue to cook the dish in a base of sour tamarind juice.


Read more...