Nantana Lamart Slatter
Faculty of Education (Elementary Education), Chulalongkorn University
Kanjana Thepboriruk
Department of Linguistics, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
This research discusses several issues pertaining to opening, managing, and operating a Thai restaurant abroad. This report is based on more than ten years of personal observation as a Thai restaurant owner in Madison, Wisconsin. We found that serving Thai cuisine abroad has both culinary and cross-cultural limitations.
Thai food is full of variety. Within any given regions there are different ways to prepare standard dishes like Green Curry or the world-famous Pad Thai. No one restaurant or vendor in Thailand can claim exclusive rights to any dish, recipe, or much less ingredient. If we apply this same idea across the different regions of Thailand, one will find even more variety. Variety in Thai cuisine in Thailand neither deters nor impedes the popularity of cross-regional and cross-cultural favorites such as Papaya Salad and Laab. This love of variety is exemplified by the ‘made-to-order’ and condiment culture in Thailand.
The application of such a natural variety across the Pacific, especially in a medium-sized American city, is difficult. The challenge is to present Thai cuisine in an appealing way to Western novices that also pleases local Thais’ palates all the while not compromising the quality or authenticity of the cuisine. The notion of Thainess is also problematic as there is no single definition and each person has his or her own ideas on how to convey such a concept through the restaurant trade.
There is, of course, no ‘right way’ to be employed towards owning and operating a Thai restaurant abroad, but there are commonly shared issues. In this report we suggest several possible ways to help restaurateurs reconcile the issues of authenticity, variety, and Thainess in a cross-cultural context.
(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))