Street food in Thailand covers a wide variety of ready-to-eat meals, snacks, fruits and drinks. All this is sold by street vendors or vendors in grocery stores or from carts on the streets of Thailand . Thai street food is popular with tourists as it represents Thai culinary traditions [1] . Bangkok is considered one of the best places for street food [2] [3] [4] . The city is famous for a variety of offers and an abundance of street vendors [5] [6] .
Content
Features
It is unlikely that in Thailand you can find a traditional Thai dish that is not sold by a street vendor or in the Thai market. Some merchants and culinary specialists specialize in only one or two dishes, others offer a large menu that can compete with restaurants. Some chefs sell only pre-cooked meals, others cook food to order. Dishes that are made to order, usually fast food: french fries with rice, kafrau (spicy eggplant fried pork) [7] or flat khan (fried fried gaylan), quickly cooked curries such as pladuk phat phet (catfish fried with red curry paste).
Dishes? those sold in Thailand's “wet markets” are usually pre-cooked. Many people go there to buy food for work or for home. The Thai market is filled with a variety of dishes made from rice, sweets and fruits. All this is neatly packed in plastic bags or food containers so that customers can share their food with colleagues at work or at home in the family. Many dishes are similar to what Thais cook at home, so this is a good place to share culinary experiences.
Food markets in Thailand are large open rooms with stationary counters. Food courts and food markets offer street stalls for sale, both pre-made and custom-made. In the evening and at night, trading is carried out from street stalls and mobile stalls in parking lots and along busy streets.
History
Traditionally, Thai dishes are prepared daily by housewives of every Thai family. However, the sale of products occupies a niche of various food ingredients, fruits and traditional delicacies offered on boats through canals ("floating market"). So in Thailand they traded from the time of Ayutthaya (1350-1767). Thailand's floating food market on rivers and canals has been functioning for two centuries. However, with the beginning of the twentieth century, King King Rama V stimulated the transition of trade to land. Until the early 1960s, street food was not as popular as it is today. Street food culture was stimulated by the rapid growth of the urban population in the country [8] [9] . In Bangkok, a housewife who feeds seven products from a street vendor is called a “plastic bag housewife.” This name comes from the fact that sellers pack food in plastic bags.
The spread of street food culture was facilitated by both internal and external factors: the Thai lifestyle and its rich culinary traditions, the rapid urbanization of the last decade opened up great opportunities in the catering sector, especially in urban areas. Demand for street food is also fueled by tourists.
Kitchen
Dishes
A popular street food is noodles. It is served as a separate dish, Pad Thai noodle dish; Rat Na , noodles with beef, pork or chicken and vegetables, with gravy; dishes Rad Na , Phat Si-Io , flat noodles, noodles with dark soy sauce, vegetables, meat and chili. Popular Chinese style noodle soups, fried noodles and Thai rice noodles (chanom chin), served with various Thai curries.
Almost everywhere in Thailand they eat Time (green papaya salad) and sticky rice, which is sold in stalls and roadside shops. Rice is widely eaten along with fried chicken. Among other well-known dishes, "Tom yum kung" (sour shrimp soup), Khao phat (fried rice), various types of curry are popular. Japanese chikuwa and German sausages are also sold in Bangkok.
Most cities and towns sell sweet roti (thin, flat-fried pastry filled with fillings such as banana, egg, and chocolate).
Snacks
Sweet snacks collectively called "Khan" such as "Taco" (coconut cream jelly), "Khan People" (coconut cake) and "Han Wun" (flavored jelly) can be seen on large trays in glazed display cases. Other sweets such as "khanom bueang" and "khanom khrok" are made to order.
In the evenings, mobile street kiosks on scooters with a side trailer pass buyers. Popular kap klaem dishes sold by mobile vendors are fried foods, sun-dried squids, skewered meats, or grilled sausages. Peeled and sliced fruits are also sold from street carts. They are sold on ice dishes to preserve freshness. Salapao, cooked buns with meat or sweet beans, are a Thai version of Chinese Baozi . These buns are widely sold by mobile vendors. Street food in Thailand offers shoppers and exotic delicacies; among them are different types of edible insects.
Notes
- ↑ Chawadee Nualkhair . Bangkok's best street food: a guide to dishes and districts , The Guardian .
- ↑ Wiens, Mark . Top 16 Bangkok Street Food Sanctuaries (Are You Ready to Eat?) , Migrationology (May 9, 2011).
- ↑ The 10 best street food cities in the world, per VirtualTourist.com, Frommer's , NY Daily News .
- ↑ The Hairy Bikers' Asian Adventure, Thailand - Bangkok and the Central Plains . BBC
- ↑ Top Ten Cities for Street Food . Virtual Tourist.
- ↑ Bender, Andrew . The World's Top 10 Cities For Street Food , Forbes (September 19, 2012).
- ↑ The world's best street food , The Guardian (February 24, 2012).
- ↑ David Thompson. Thai Street Food .
- ↑ BW Higman. How Food Made History .
Literature
- Chawadee Nualkhair. Thailand's Best Street Food: The Complete Guide to Streetside Dining in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket and Other Areas . - Tuttle Publishing, 2015 .-- ISBN 9781462915293 .
Links
- Mark Wiens: Ridiculously Creamy Shrimp and Khao San Road (ต้มยำ กุ้ง อร่อย มาก) - Bangkok Day 1 . YouTube video.
- Asian street food: Thai street food. 2016 . YouTube video.