Pad thai

Pad thai is made with rehydrated dried rice noodles with some tapioca flour mixed in, which are stir fried with eggs and chopped firm tofu, flavored with tamarind juice, fish sauce, dried shrimp, garlic or shallots, red chili pepper and palm sugar, and served with lime wedges and often chopped roasted peanuts.[3] It may contain other vegetables like bean sprouts, garlic chives, pickled radishes or turnips, and raw banana flowers. It may also contain fresh shrimp, crab, squid, chicken or other fish or meat.

Many of the ingredients are provided on the side as condiments, such as the red chili pepper, lime wedges, roasted peanuts, bean sprouts, spring onion and other miscellaneous fresh vegetables.[4] Vegetarian versions may substitute soy sauce for the fish sauce and omit the shrimp entirely.

Though stir fried rice noodles were introduced to Thailand from mainland China centuries ago, the dish pad thai was invented in the mid-20th century.[5]

Author Mark Padoongpatt[6] maintains that pad thai is "...not this traditional, authentic, going back hundreds of years dish. It was actually created in the 1930s in Thailand by Plaek Phibunsongkhram, who was the prime minister at the time. The dish was created because Thailand was focused on nation building.[2] So he created this dish using Chinese noodles and called it pad Thai as a way to galvanize nationalism."[7]

Another explanation of pad thai's provenance holds 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 Phibunsongkhram promoted consumption of noodles instead.[8] His government promoted rice noodles and helped to establish the identity of Thailand.[2] As a result, a new noodle called sen chan (named after Chanthaburi Province) was created. Pad thai has since become one of Thailand's national dishes.[9] Today, some food vendors add pork or chicken (although the original recipe did not contain pork because of the government's perception that pork was a Chinese meat).[10] Some food vendors still use the original recipe.

Pad Thai was never mentioned in any of Prime Minister Phibunsongkhram's speeches. He only mentioned the term "Kuay Tiew" (ก๋วยเตี๋ยว), which means "noodles". Therefore, the narrative that Phibunsongkhram is the father of Pad Thai is inconclusive and debatable, especially among food scholars in Thailand.[11]

Thai-American food writer Kasma Loha-unchit disputes the claim of a native Thai origin and suggests that the Pad thai was actually invented by the Chinese immigrants themselves, because "for a dish to be so named in its own country clearly suggests an origin that isn't Thai".[12] 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 "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."[13]

• 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.[14]
• The Thai film Jao saao Pad Thai uses pad thai as a plot device as the heroine claims she will marry whoever eats her pad thai for 100 days in a row.[15]
• On November 7, 2017, a Google Doodle featuring pad thai was displayed in the United States, Canada, Cuba, Thailand, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and several countries in both Europe and South America.[16][17] Google celebrated it as an initiative of Doodler Juliana.[18] While she was researching how to prepare it, she aimed to show all the ingredients up close and with a colourful animation.[19]

• Your Last Meal with Rachel Belle: "Lauren Weedman, Pad Thai" (podcast), KIRO Seattle