Pad Thai Economics
A fascinating story
Pad Thai. It’s one of the most famous Asian meals in the US. Right up there with the Chinese dish General Tso’s chicken and the Indian chicken tikka masala. Of course, many are aware that General Tso’s chicken isn’t a traditional Chinese meal. There are conflicting claims about who originated the recipe, but it first appeared in Chinese restaurants in New York City in the 1970s. Chicken tikka masala is also more modern than some might guess. No maharaja ever enjoyed it. In fact, it was first popularized in Indian restaurants in that most exotic of locations: Glasgow, Scotland.
At first glance, pad Thai seems more authentic than its ersatz counterparts. For starters, pad Thai was invented in Thailand. Americans first discovered it in the 1960s, when American GIs would vacation there during leaves from Vietnam. The ingredients also appear genuine, as opposed to the dairy-heavy and clearly foreign chicken tikka masala. However, just as the emperor of China never polished off a plate of General Tso’s chicken, no king of Siam ever ate pad Thai. The origins of the dish, and its success, is a fascinating story of top-down cultural persuasion.
In the 1930s, Siam and much of Southeast Asia were becoming a nation-state in a 20th-century-sense. After centuries of feudal kingdoms vying for power and various leaders who sometimes ruled vast areas, borders were finally coalescing around ethnic groups. Cambodia became Cambodia, Vietnam became Vietnam, etc. A military officer named Plaek Phibunsongkhram, known as Phibun, in 1938 became the third prime minister of Siam and soon a military dictator. At the time, Thais were the dominant ethnic group in Siam, but there was also a large Chinese minority that was politically and economically powerful.
Phibun decided his nation needed to be for the Thais, with a strong national identity and a more homogenous culture. Thus, Siam was renamed Thailand. Thai identity was encouraged and promoted. The Chinese were sidelined. To accompany this newfound ethnic pride, Phibun wanted Thailand to have a national dish. Exactly how he settled on pad Thai or where the original recipe came from is unknown. Dishes similar to pad Thai had been eaten around Thailand for centuries, ironically as a Thai-Chinese fusion meal of Thai sauces over Chinese noodles. What we know as pad Thai today, however, appeared in Phibun’s kitchen and quickly spread across the country. Despite being somewhat unusual for Thai cuisine, which is based on rice rather than noodles, it was embraced by locals. The prime minister literally took a niche recipe and made it the national dish overnight.
The giveaway is in the very name: “pad Thai”. Generally, meals that are popular in a country don’t contain the nationality in the name, at least not domestically. You might find “French fries” and “Belgian waffles” on a menu in the United States, but in France, they are “pommes frites,” and in Belgium, it is simply “wafels”. No one calls a Brazilian steakhouse a “Brazilian steakhouse” in Brazil (it’s a churrascaria). The leader of Thailand decided to invent a national dish and literally named it “stir-fried Thai”. And it took. That is amazing.
Phibun’s overall program of “Thai-fication” might be the most successful culture-building program in world history, at least as far as those that don’t also entail massacring a significant portion of the population. Thai culture became paramount. The Thai language was standardized, with dialects falling by the wayside. Today, the results speak for themselves. Thailand, if anything, has too much national spirit, with strict laws banning any criticism of the Thai king and a hair-trigger reaction to any perceived slight by their Cambodian neighbors.
As unusual as pad Thai’s origin is, its second act belies belief. Pad Thai is no longer just one of the most popular meals in Thailand; it’s one of the most popular meals in the world. And that too is no accident. Towards the end of the 20th century, Thai food slowly gained popularity abroad, with the number of Thai restaurants in America growing from an estimated 500 in 1990 to 2,000 in 2002. Then the Thai government began a bold new program to expand the number of Thai restaurants around the world.
Called “Global Thai,” the government of Thailand would provide loans, technical advice, and access to ingredients to any Thai citizen who wanted to start a Thai restaurant abroad. The idea was to increase the “soft power” of Thailand. By opening Thai restaurants around the world, foreigners would become more familiar with Thai culture. They would be more likely to watch Thai movies, listen to Thai music, and, most importantly, visit Thailand. The program was a smashing success. In the United States alone, there are now over 10,000 Thai restaurants.
This is the face of some serious headwinds. First, although Thailand isn’t an off-the-radar destination, it isn’t popular among Americans. You’ll find far more Europeans than Yankees in Phuket. Second, there isn’t a large Thai diaspora in the US. Depending on the source, there are anywhere from 200,000 to 340,000 Thais living in America. This is nowhere close to the number of individuals needed to create a thriving national restaurant industry. The number of Thais in America is comparable to the number of Hmong and Indonesians. Yet only Thais have created a vast restaurant industry on par with any other ethnic cuisine.
Part of the reason for this stunning success is that Thai food is both delicious and inoffensive. There aren’t many who would label Thai their favorite cuisine, but few hate it. Thai food is palatable to both Midwestern Grandparents and Bushwick polycules. It’s familiar yet exotic. That said, a lot of cuisines fall into this bucket. Most have dishes that will be broadly palatable to Americans. Yet only Thai food punches so far above its weight. Even small towns will often have a Thai restaurant, while those seeking Indonesian food need to visit a major city. That success, at least in part, can be credited to the Global Thai initiative. It’s the most successful government culture program you’ve never heard of, and it would behoove nations around the world looking to elevate their culture to study such a unique achievement.