Pad thai

History

Pad thai was originally called kuai tiao pad thai, but this was later shortened to simply pad thai. Kuai tiao (ก๋วยเตี๋ยว) is a Thai borrowing from the Teochew word guê² diao⁵ (粿條), which means a type of thick Chinese rice noodle also known as shahe fen. The word kuai tiao has cognates in several other Southeast Asian countries where Chinese immigrants settled; with kuyteav in Cambodia, hủ tiếu in Vietnam, and kway teow in Malaysia and Singapore being analogues.

Although stir-fried rice noodles were introduced to Thailand from China centuries ago, the dish pad thai was invented in the mid-20th century. American author Mark Padoongpatt maintains that pad thai is "...not this traditional, authentic, going back hundreds of years dish. It was actually created in the 1930s in Thailand. The dish was created because Thailand was focused on nation-building. So this dish was created using rice noodles and it was called pad thai as a way to galvanize nationalism."

The commonly held explanation of pad thai's provenance is that during World War II, Thailand suffered a rice shortage due to the war and floods. To reduce domestic rice consumption, the Thai government under Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram promoted consumption of noodles instead. His government promoted rice noodles and helped to establish the modern identity of Thailand. As a result, a new noodle dish called sen chan pad thai (named after Chanthaburi Province) was created. Pad thai has since become one of Thailand's national dishes.

Another explanation by Thai-American food writer Kasma Loha-unchit suggests that pad thai was invented by the Thai Chinese immigrants, because "for a dish to be so named in its own country clearly suggests an origin that isn't Thai". Noodle cookery in most Southeast Asian countries was introduced by the wave of immigrants from southern China settling in the region the past century. Loha-unchit states that the ethnic Chinese of Thailand were aware that "Central Thai people were very fond of the combination of hot, sour, sweet and salty flavors, they added these to their stir-fried noodle dishes and gave it a fusion name, much like Western chefs today are naming their dishes Thai this or Thai that on their East-West menus."

At least as early as 2001, the Thai government used pad thai as a form of "soft power", creating "the Global Thai Restaurant Company, Ltd., in an effort to establish at least 3,000 Thai restaurants worldwide." The plan included numerous government agencies and resulted in nearly tripling the number of Thai restaurants globally in seventeen years.

Pad thai is listed at number five on a list of "World's 50 most delicious foods" readers' poll compiled by CNN Go in 2011.