9781422277508

C onnecting C ultures T hrough F ami ly and F oo d

The Thai Family Table by H .W. P ool e

C onnecting C ultures T hrough F ami ly and F oo d

The African Family Table The Chinese Family Table The Greek Family Table The Indian Family Table The Italian Family Table The Japanese Family Table The Mexican Family Table

The Middle Eastern Family Table The Native American Family Table The SouthAmerican Family Table The Thai Family Table

C onnecting C ultures T hrough F ami ly and F oo d

The Thai Family Table

By H.W. Poole

MASON CREST

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© 2019 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Poole, Hilary W., author. Title: The Thai family table / by H.W. Poole. Description: Broomall, PA : Mason Crest, [2018] | Series: Connecting cultures through family and food | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017053438| ISBN 9781422240526 (hardback) | ISBN 9781422277508 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Cooking, Thai--Juvenile literature. | Thai Americans--Food--Juvenile literature. | Thai Americans--Social life and customs--Juvenile literature. | Thailand--Social life and customs--Juvenile literature. Classification: LCC TX724.5.T5 P67 2018 | DDC 641.59593--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc. gov/2017053438

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Introduction............................................................................................. 6 1. Getting Here. ...........................................10 SNACKS AND STREET FOOD.............................................22 2. Settling In................................................24 SOUPS AND SALADS............................................................. 34 3. Connecting..............................................36 THE MAIN COURSE...............................................................48 4. Reaching Back........................................50 DESSERT.................................................................................58 Find Out More......................................................................................62 Series Glossary of Key Terms..........................................................63 Index/Author........................................................................................ 64 Contents

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Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic moments, and much more! Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together addi- tional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

Introduction

T hailand is anation inSoutheast Asia, flanked by Myanmar on thewest and by Laos andCambodia on the east; it also shares a border withMalaysia to thesouth.Theword thai means “free,” and Thai people will tell youwith pride that theirs is the only South Asian country that was never colonized by a Western power. The countrywas calledSiam by outsiders, until the name was officially changed in 1948. But some remnants of the old name still ex- ist: For example, Siamese cats were bred from cats that were native to Thailand. Officially, Thailand is divided into 76 provinces, eachwith its own governor and administration. How- ever, it’s often said (only somewhat jokingly) that there is oneadditional

province: Los Angeles, California. Los Angeles and its surrounding communitiesarehome to the largest communityof Thaipeopleanywhere outside of Asia. Roughly two-thirds of all ThaiAmericans call Southern California home. The existence of Thai commu- nities anywhere outside Thailand is fairly new. Unlike countries with long histories of emigration—Ire- land, for example, or Greece—Thai people have only been moving to other countries in large numbers since the mid-1960s. People of Thai ancestry are still sorting out pre- cisely what it means to be a Thai American, Thai Canadian, or Thai Australian, simply because the en- tire phenomenon is only about 50 years old.

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Introduction

Wedoknowthatmanyof thefirst Thai people to arrive in the United States worked hard to become as American as possible, as quickly as possible. Many were married to US military personnel, which means they joined American families as

soon as they stepped off the plane. Others were doctors and nurses, whowerehighlyeducatedandeager to become medical professionals in the United States. The desire to fit in was often quite strong. On the other hand, some Thai

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

immigrantscametotheUnitedStates insearchof economicoreducational opportunitiesandviewed theUnited States as a place to work— to them, America was never intended to be home the way Thailand had been.

Interestingly, whether these pioneer immigrants were eager to assimilate (which means to inte- grate into a larger culture) or re- jected the idea completely, they all tended to view life inAmerica as an

Thai restaurants are not hard to find in American and European cities.

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Introduction

either/or situation. Youeither aban- doned your old self and became as American as you could, or you held tightly to your Thai roots and remained essentially a long-term visitor to the United States. In either case, keeping a con- nection to one part of your Thai roots—food and dining—was im- portant. The spread of Thai food in the United States is directly tied to

the growing number of Thai people emigrating in recent decades. In recent years, a third path has emerged, particularlyamongyoung- er people. They were born in the United States but feel curious about the land their parents left behind. Rather thanrejectingeither culture, they are trying to forge a path that combines the best of both worlds: a new, Thai American identity.

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Getting Here

Words to Understand emigration to leave one’s birth country and live somewhere else (compare to immigration, which means to go to a country) exclusion to keep someone out or deny them access presentation here, the style in which food is plated and served K aoKaliaYangwas just six years oldwhen she immigrated toAmericawithher family. She and her older sister were both born in Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand. Everything about their new lives seemed strange at first—from the smells to the food, from the tall streetlights along roads to the “click, click” sound of women’s high heels on hard floors. Even sleeping in a multistory building was foreign to young Kao, but it was also exciting. “The idea of sleeping on air . . .” she wrote later, “felt like something magical.” Adjusting to a new country would not be easy for the Yang family. But even so, Kao was eager to embrace whatever lay ahead. “America was before me,” she recalled. “My mother and father were close by me, and the world was open.”

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This family was one of many from Thailand who moved from refugee camps to a welcome reception in Minnesota.

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

A Brief Introduction to Thai Cuisine T hailand is a fairly small country—a bit smaller than the state of Texas—with a population of about 68million. But the nation has had an outsized influence on the world of food, and Thai cuisine is one of the most popular types anywhere. The unique flavors and aromas of Thai cuisine blend many different influences. A thousand years of cultural exchange between Thailand and India, its northwestern neighbor, resulted in curries becoming one of the most important categories of Thai dishes. Another vital cooking technique, stir-frying, was introduced to Thailand hundreds of years

Stir-frying is a part of much of Thai cuisine, whether on the street as shown here, or in restaurants and private kitchens.

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Getting Here

ago by the Chinese. And that vital Thai ingredient, the chili pepper, was brought to Thailand by Portuguese merchants. In his book Thai Food , author and chef David Thompson compares the histories of the tomato and the chili pepper as a way of explaining Thailand’s attitude toward outside influences. When explorers brought tomato plants from the NewWorld back to Europe, the plants were widely

The Five Flavors

Specific ingredients are used to create the all-important five flavors of Thai cuisine. Here are just a few: • Sweet: different types of sugar, including palm and coconut sugars • Sour: lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves (below) • Spicy: chili peppers • Salty: fish sauce, soy sauce • Bitter: bitter melon, leaves of the cassod tree

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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

believed to be poisonous. It took about 200 years for tomatoes to be accepted byEuropean cooks. By contrast, when the chiliwas introduced toThailand by Portuguese traders, it was adapted within just one generation, and the chili quickly became an essential component of Thai cooking. Thai food gets its heat from chilis, but it’s important to understand Thai food is more than just spicy. The philosophy of Thai cuisine is built on the notion of balancing five essential flavors: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and spicy (see box on page 13). Thai American food tends to avoid the more bitter or sour flavors, because many Americans don’t enjoy those. But ideally, Thai dishes should balance these flavors equally. Beautiful presentation is another important aspect of Thai cuisine. For example, fruits and vegetables are sometimes carved into delicate flowers or other pleasing shapes. The emphasis on presentation is partly due to the fact that, historically, styles and trends in cooking used to begin

Thai food basics