Why Pad Thai is so Popular

I'm in Bangkok and I want some pad thai [Music] when you arrive in Thailand probably one of the first things you want to do is eat authentic Pad Thai it's the signature dish of the country it's been cultivated here for Generations if anyone's gonna do it right it's gonna be here where people have been doing it for centuries there's only one problem that kind of pad thai doesn't exist [Music] this looks so good you can actually feel the heat coming out of the stove right now it's kind of crazy I can't wait to try it a boat over here okay obviously Thailand has Pad Thai and I'm not saying that it was invented by some immigrants overseas or even that it's more popular outside of Thailand what I'm trying to say is that pad thai isn't this dish that has been developed across Generations fruit tradition it's barely even 100 years old because Pad Thai was invented by the government thank you all right so we're going to this one Pad Thai shop that has a Michelin star it's actually run by someone who is deaf and mute and yeah I don't know too much about this place but I'm gonna try it out so what's special here is that oh they add one ingredient in our recipe [Music] so make it in charcoal stove instead of a normal gas though this one's super good it's really juicy and moist the birth of pad thai can be traced back to two things this map and this military General Thai people call him ba or pboon you see one thing I learned while I was in Thailand is that Thai Cuisine is almost entirely rice based any noodle dish was basically coming from China and Thai people weren't really into it in the beginning but now Thailand's most popular food is a noodle dish so how did we get from Thai people not liking noodles to this this is not Tatai at all this is not but I have to be sweet sour and salty I think that doesn't taste too bad well it comes down to pboon who pushed the government campaign called noodles is your lunch so the government took this rice noodle from China they call it quite Yao and started putting it together with random cheap Thai ingredients like Tamarind sauce and Nampa they eventually called this dish meaning Thai stir-fried rice noodles and it was promoted like the best thing ever in Thailand by the way I Gotta Give it to peebun Pad Thai is genuinely one of the best things ever like this was really damn good [Music] yeah there's a reason why Pad Thai is Thailand's most famous dish I mean for propaganda reasons that we'll get into but also it does taste really good like I'm not trying to say that it's bad or anything it genuinely is one of my favorite dishes from Thailand [Music] I mean I'm not joking just look at this message signed by people in himself I want people to eat quite Theo because it's good for your body if Thai people ate quite once a day 900 000 bot would go to gardeners Farmers fishermen I mean damn this guy really liked his noodles but I mean he was kind of a weird guy in general he once made it mandatory for everyone in Thailand to wear a hat outside and exercise at least once a day he did all of this in efforts to protect Thailand from European conquests and the crazy thing is it kind of worked even though peebun's methods were unconventional he did have good reasons like look at Thailand's Neighbors at the time with Empires at every side for thousands of miles this relatively small country was a sort of unofficial buffer zone between them Thailand which was called Siam at the time was never colonized it was never under European control but these nations surrounding it didn't make it feel at ease either Thailand needed a strong sense of national Unity to keep the country from being torn apart like the places surrounding it people himself even once said we must be as cultured as other nations otherwise Thailand would be helpless and soon become colonized this map this situation to him was a ticking time bomb the country needed cultural symbols to United because side note not everyone in Thailand is ethnically Thai one of the symbols to unite people was food but it had to be cheap because the world was about to get violent when Japan began conquering Asia Thailand was under a new threat Japan eventually invaded Thailand but allowed them to keep their independence under the condition that they joined the axis Alliance which they reluctantly did during this time as an axis member surrounded by a single Empire Thailand's economy started suffering rice was Thailand's main export and in addition to the war the country was getting hit by these really bad floods I mean this is supposed to be a road the floods caused a shortage of rice but Thailand needed the money so it chose to sell what little rice it had overseas that meant that the government had to convince ties at home to start eating something that wasn't rice something cheaper and easier to make something like noodles among all the noodle dishes Pad Thai was the main star of this noodles were like a third of the price of rice so the government developed a dish that was relatively easy and cheap to cook like I mean the government made the original recipe for Pad Thai these recipes were given out in newspapers and it started being served at Street vendors [Music] thank you [Music] this looks so good you can actually feel the heat coming out of the stove right now it's kind of crazy I can't wait to try it [Music] so one of the details in baptized you emphasize that it wasn't a Chinese dish is that they replaced pork which is the common meat for Chinese noodles with shrimp or sometimes Chicken shrimp is apparently really big in Thailand and is a big part of pad thai wow just look at that oh my God Jesus it's spicy but it's one of the best Pad thighs I've ever had what the hell is this it's awesome this is so rich I love Thai food but anyways it wasn't really easy to convince Thai people to start eating noodles over their main staple rice to convince Street vendors to even serve Pad Thai the government started doing stuff like giving out free cards to anybody willing to serve the dish the government also ironically banned Chinese people from being able to sell Pad Thai to take away competition from Thai people and also to further convince them that it wasn't a Chinese dish people were told that if they ate Pad Thai they were saving the country from the flood and the War I mean there's a reason why Thai is in the name Pad Thai it's propaganda that tastes really good since then Pad Thai has become a genuine dish in Thailand something that represents Thai Cuisine across the world [Music] we're at a floating market right now and there's so much food that I've never seen before so I'm gonna try as much as I can [Music] [Music] this is a coconut pudding right High coconut pudding oh my God it's so hot the food is so hot the stoves are so hot the weather is so hot so hot everywhere [Music] we just took a boat over here and found this random cafe that's built over this really old Canal just check this out [Music] anyways I think one of the key takeaways to this is that you can literally see and experience propaganda most of us probably think that propaganda doesn't really affect us we imagine that it only happens in countries like North Korea or something but the most effective campaigns are usually the most invisible ones so Pad Thai was essentially a weapon used on Thai people a good weapon but a weapon nonetheless ultimately it's up to you to decide what counts as authentic or traditional to me at least I think for something to be authentic it needs to be cultivated or developed by a people or Community not by any company or government but what do you guys think let me know in the comments and remember if anyone is ever trying to sell you Sentry's Old Pad Thai they're lying to you hey everyone well I just want to say that this channel has grown a lot in the past month and I'm super excited by all the support from everyone I'm back from Thailand now but I want to keep on making videos and travel around the world and discover more stories on food that I have never thought about before like before I went to Thailand I barely knew anything about the history of pad thai I just have always thought it was just a normal dish there to find out that it was invented by the government was pretty crazy and I really enjoyed digging deep into the history of it obviously right now I don't necessarily have the resources and time to allow me to keep traveling everywhere and keep making these videos so that means that the more this channel grows the more of these kind of videos I get to make but yeah anyways if you like this video and aren't yet then please subscribe comment like anything that pushes this video out into the algorithm I've got some more videos coming down the line that I think will be pretty interesting some are about history some are about the present day but um yeah I'm really bad at talking without a script so I'll see you next time

Channel: Matthew Li

Views: 13,527

Keywords: off the menu, matthew li, thai food, pad thai, pad thai recipe, pad thai history, best pad thai, best pad thai in thailand, thailand, thailand documentary, matt li, thailand food, food thai, where to eat in thailand, bangkok pad thai, pad thai bangkok, recipe pad thai

Id: Eb-3Vq3Th0Q

Length: 11min 36sec (696 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 01 2023