Niphatchanok Najpinij
Suan Dusit Rajabhat University
The repertoire of Thai cuisine is well placed in world gastronomy, with a combination of life and soul often articulated with meaningful concepts. There are dimensional tastes in each samrap (สำรับ), or set of food, to please the diners. In addition to eight flavours orchestrated to represent various ingredients, nourishment and heeling are taken into consideration. Beauty, form and color complement each other in every bite. Flowers in Thai ecology are chosen to drive the sensory elements of the food: food for the body, food for the mind and food for the eyes. Even though the taste of food comes first, garnishing correctly to enhance the diner’s view is parallel. All of these sensory enhancers are forces for Thai food culture from the farm to the kitchen to the table.
(Presented in the 2014 Chulalongkorn Asian Heritage Forum: Flower Culture in Asia, 8-9 July 2014, Imperial Queen’s Park Hotel, Bangkok, organized by Institute of Thai Studies, Institute of Asian Studies, and Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University)