55 Fun Facts About Thai Food

Traditional Thai cuisine balances which four flavours?

Sweet, sour, salty and spicy flavours are balanced across the whole meal, which is served all at once rather than in courses.

In CNN Travel's 2011 readers' poll of the world's 50 best foods, which Thai dish placed highest?

Tom yum kung placed fourth after more than 35,000 votes, a poll won by Indonesia's rendang rather than CNNGo's own pick, massaman curry.

In the traditional four categories of Thai cooking, the word 'yam' refers to which kind of dish?

Spicy salads: yam literally means to mix, and a yam is made simply by tossing everything together.

The Thai spirit Mekhong is distilled from what?

Molasses is distilled for Mekhong, which is then blended with Thai herbs and spices to give the spirit its flavour.

Thai golden egg-thread sweets adapt recipes from which European country's cuisine?

Portugal: egg yolks mark these threads as an import, since Thai sweets with eggs in them were adapted from other food cultures.

Chopsticks are mainly used in Thailand for what?

Chinese-style noodle soups get chopsticks because chopsticks came to Thailand with Chinese migrants.

In Isan and northern Thailand, sticky rice is rolled into balls and used as what?

An edible utensil for dipping, the ball is shaped with the right hand only, by custom, and Thais ate by hand like this long before spoons arrived.

What is Thailand's prized fragrant rice, khao hom mali, called in English?

Jasmine rice loses its popcorn-like aroma in storage, so connoisseurs seek out each year's freshly harvested 'new crop'.

Kapi, indispensable for Thai curry pastes, is made from what?

Fermented ground shrimp and salt make kapi, and since every traditional Thai curry paste contains it, vegetarian shops have to swap in substitutes.

Palm sugar, the traditional sweetener in Thai cooking, is made from the sap of what?

Borassus palms are tapped for sugary sap from their flower clusters, which is boiled down into sugar or fermented into toddy, a palm wine.

Which herb, with an anise-like scent and purple stems, perfumes green curry?

Thai basil is added near the end, with the other garnishes, to give green curry its fragrance.

The blue colour in some Thai sweets and rice comes from the flowers of which plant?

Butterfly pea flowers make a blue tea that turns violet when lemon is squeezed in, a trick Thai hotels and spas serve as a welcome drink.

In Thai, farang means a Westerner, and it is also the everyday name for which fruit?

Guava shares the word, probably because it was a foreign fruit, carried to Asia from the Americas by European colonizers.

Which global energy drink grew out of Krating Daeng, a Thai tonic first sold to rural labourers?

Red Bull came about after Austrian marketer Dietrich Mateschitz found Krating Daeng eased his jet lag in Thailand and partnered with its creator, Chaleo Yoovidhya.

Which prime minister, who also renamed Siam as Thailand, is credited with popularising pad thai?

Plaek Phibunsongkhram's government pushed the dish as part of a nation-building drive to stir Thai national pride.

Thailand's early-2000s government drive to spread Thai restaurants abroad ran under what campaign name?

Kitchen of the World came with state loans and training for Thais opening restaurants overseas, a way to sell more Thai exports and lure tourists.

What does 'wan', meaning sweet, describe in green curry's Thai name, kaeng khiao wan?

The particular shade of the dish, a mild creamy green, is what 'wan' describes, so green curry isn't meant to taste sweeter than other curries.

Red curry gets its colour from what?

Its Thai name kaeng phet literally means 'spicy curry', and the paste is traditionally pounded moist in a mortar.

Thai yellow curry, kaeng kari, is most typically served with chicken or beef and which starchy vegetable?

Potatoes: yet order kaeng lueang, literally 'yellow curry', in Thailand and you will get a different curry altogether.

Massaman curry's use of cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg reflects roots in which religious community?

Muslim roots explain those spices, and a boat song attributed to King Rama II praises massaman curry.

Northern Thailand's kaeng hang le, a pork curry, came from which country?

Myanmar's Burmese kings ruled northern Thailand's Lanna kingdom until the 1770s.

What did a sensor-packed robot, unveiled by Thailand's government in 2014, check Thai dishes for?

Authentic taste was the goal after bad Thai meals abroad led Yingluck Shinawatra's government to push for standard Thai recipes.

Chang, one of Thailand's two best-known beer brands, is named after which animal?

Elephant is chang in Thai, and the brewer carried its elephant logo onto Everton's Premier League shirts starting in 2004.

Galangal, the rhizome that flavours tom kha soup, belongs to which plant family?

Ginger's family also holds galangal, and tom kha cooks sometimes swap in plain ginger.

Northern Thai khao soi is thought to have come via which caravan traders from Yunnan?

Chin Haw traders, Chinese Muslims from Yunnan, brought a noodle soup that local cooks later enriched with coconut milk, rare in northern Thai cooking.

Phat kaphrao, a popular Thai dish, is meat stir-fried with garlic, chilli and which herb?

Holy basil: diners who can't decide what to order often pick phat kaphrao, so it is jokingly called the 'out of ideas' dish.

Larb, the minced meat salad popular in Isan and northern Thailand, originated in which country?

Laos is larb's home, and the dish is said to be lucky partly because its name sounds like laap, a word for luck.

Pla ra, the pungent seasoning of Isan cooking, is made by fermenting fish with salt and what?

The mixture sits in a closed container for at least six months and was already common food in the Ayutthaya kingdom.

Traditional Thai fish sauce, nam pla, is made by fermenting salted fish for about how long?

About a year, because enzymes from the fish's own gut and flesh, then salt-loving bacteria, only slowly break it down into sauce.

The Romans made a fish sauce comparable to Thai nam pla; what was it called?

Garum was so popular that a kosher version was made for Jewish Romans, and jars of it turned up in the ruins of Pompeii.

Sriracha sauce takes its name from a town in which Thai province?

Chonburi's Si Racha gave the sauce its name, but the famous rooster-bottle sriracha is made in America by Huy Fong Foods.

During Phuket's annual vegetarian festival, food stalls fly little flags of which colour?

Yellow was the colour of China's emperors, and vegetarian restaurants across Thailand post yellow signs with the word 'che' written in red.

The Thai name for the tiny bird's eye pepper, phrik khi nu, literally means what?

Mouse-dropping chili is what Thais chop into fish sauce to make phrik nam pla, the condiment served with nearly every meal.

Citrus hystrix, the knobbly fruit whose leaves flavour Thai soups and curries, is also known by what name?

Makrut lime is the name some writers use, because 'kaffir', the fruit's more common English name, is a racial slur in South Africa.

Thai boat noodles, first sold by vendors paddling canal boats, are traditionally served in what?

Tiny bowls stayed when the vendors moved ashore into shops, and some shops still keep a boat parked out front.

Khanom chin, Thailand's fermented rice noodles, originated with which people?

The Mon are thought to have pounded, fermented and extruded rice into these noodles for centuries, and khanom chin is still made from rice fermented for three days.

Which dessert did Thai rapper Milli eat on stage at Coachella in 2022, sending sales soaring back home?

Mango sticky rice orders doubled at some Thai shops after Milli, the first Thai solo artist at Coachella, took a few bites on stage.

Thai iced tea gets its base from which type of tea?

Ceylon black tea is steeped long through a cloth 'sock' filter, then sweetened with condensed milk and poured over crushed ice.

Street cook Jay Fai, famous for her crab omelette, is instantly recognisable for cooking in what?

Ski goggles are her trademark, and her Michelin star brought a surge of diners to her shophouse.

Kaeng tai pla, a fiercely pungent Thai curry, is named for a sauce made from what?

Fermented fish entrails give the curry its punch, so fresh vegetables are served on the side to cool the heat.

Miang kham, the 'one bite wrap' snack, is traditionally wrapped in the leaves of which plant?

Fillings include roasted coconut, shallots, lime with peel, dried shrimp and peanuts, topped with a palm-sugar syrup.

Which region of Thai cuisine is known for dishes rich in turmeric?

Southern cooking, with its complex curries and spices, has shaped Thai cuisine well beyond the south.

Chef McDang argues that the difference between royal Thai cuisine and everyday Thai food is what?

Only presentation and better ingredients set palace food apart, he says: royal cooks deboned fried mackerel before serving it looking whole.

What is 'oliang'?

Arabica coffee was introduced to the northern highlands as a replacement crop for opium.

In Thai, the one-plate meal khao rat kaeng literally means what?

Rice covered with curry is how these shops serve it: diners pick from trays of ready-made dishes and say whether to pile them over the rice.

A traditional Thai family meal is built around which crucial component?

A dip or relish for vegetables can be the main event, and the soup, curry and other dishes around it are chosen to contrast in flavour and texture.

Thailand is sometimes claimed to be the world leader in eating what?

Insects are farmed as well as foraged there, after cricket-farming methods from Khon Kaen University spread to Thai farmers from the late 1990s.

Which king introduced the fork and spoon to Thailand after touring Europe in 1897?

Chulalongkorn's fork and spoon became the Thai norm, so even plated noodle dishes such as pad see ew come with a spoon and fork.

What is the khantoke that northern Thailand's khantoke dinners are named after?

A low pedestal tray, though the khantoke dinner show billed as old Lanna custom was introduced only in the 1950s, to promote Chiang Mai to visitors.

The Isan grilled-meat salad nam tok shares its Thai name with which natural feature?

Waterfall is the meaning, a name said to come from the meat juices, dripping as it grills or running out as it is sliced.

Ho mok pla, a spicy fish and coconut-milk souffle, is traditionally steamed in a cup made of what?

Banana leaf parcels were once cooked buried in hot ashes, which is why ho mok means 'bury wrap', though today it is steamed.

Kaeng khanun, a northern Thai curry, is made from which fruit, picked while still green?

Jackfruit, whose green flesh oozes such sticky latex that cooks oil their hands and knives before cutting it up.

In what liquid is the rice for khao man kai steamed?

Chicken stock flavours the rice because khao man kai is Thailand's take on Hainanese chicken rice, brought over by Chinese immigrants.

Cha-om, a leaf used in Thai curries and omelettes, comes from what kind of tree?

An acacia's thorny shrubs are pruned often, which keeps the young shoots that cooks want low and easy to pick.

Strawberries and other temperate fruits were introduced to Thai highland farms to replace what crop?

Opium poppy farmers in the hills were steered toward crops that paid better through the Royal Project King Bhumibol began in 1969.