Busarin Lertchavalitsakul
Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development, Chiang Mai University
This study, which is based on the literature reviews and interviews with three well-known Khao Soi shop owners in Chiang Mai city, aims to investigate the construction of Khao Soi, the curry rice noodle, to be a must-eat food of the visitors who travel to Chiang Mai under the tourism project of the Thai government. The study was inspired by the news article reporting that Khao Soi can now be shipped as a frozen product to be sold in Australia. This phenomenon shows the process of globalization through the “regional” dish of Khao Soi. Khao Soi has become one of the core markers identifying Chiang Mai as a top tourist destination. The emergence of Khao Soi as a cultural commodity of Chiang Mai is influenced by the context of Chiang Mai itself as well. Because of the tourism promotion, Chiang Mai has been supported in terms of budget allocation and administration from the central government to be “the capital city” of the northern region. The development of Chiang Mai, which is intermingled with its richness of cultural heritage and natural resources persuades all walks of life to settle, work in, and visit Chiang Mai more and more every year. Consequently, Khao Soi, which is not originally from the Thai cuisine, has been selected as a cultural product of Chiang Mai. Actually, it is considered to be a food influenced by either Chin Haw (Yunnanese Muslim) or Shan and was appropriated into a Northern Thai food over time. Apart from tracing the historical context of the development of Chiang Mai city, the interviews of the three Khao Soi makers demonstrates interestingly the construction of Khao Soi through the means of hybridization and the domination of taste, which eventually allowed this dish to become the identity of Chiang Mai.
(Presented in the International Conference – Thai Food Heritage: Local to Global, 4-6 August 2009, Tawana Bangkok Hotel, Bangkok, organized by The Project of Empowering Network for International Thai Studies (ENITS), Institute of Thai Studies, Chulalongkorn University with support from the Thailand Research Fund (TRF))