Discover the regional cuisine of Thailand with acclaimed food writer Kay Plunkett-Hogge as she travels through her homeland

Discover the beautiful regional cuisine of Thailand with acclaimed food and drinks writer Kay Plunkett-Hogge as she travels around her homeland exploring the past and future of Thai food.

Thai food is so much more diverse than most people think. Like many countries and food cultures, it has within it profound regional differences. And these don’t just exist between its regions, sometimes you find them from town to town, village to village. In this book, acclaimed food and drinks writer Kay Plunkett-Hogge travels the length and breadth of the Kingdom to reveal this diversity to readers and cooks alike. From the hilltribe communities in the far north, and the Kuomingtang who settled in this region after their civil war, to the Perakanese food of the south and the many diasporas (Portuguese, Persian, Chinese, Indian) that have shaped the cuisine, Kay finds that borders, when it comes to food, are arbitrary things: they are porous.

Thai food is influenced by many of its neighboring states, and not just the ones that directly border it, such as Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia, but also Vietnam, India, Indonesia and beyond. It is a diverse melting pot of different cuisines, ingredients and cultures. Bangkok, as the hub of the country, has become a unique food culture of its own. Here, all the regional cuisines come together and feed off each other, creating new dishes and ideas. The cuisine is constantly evolving.

Kay also explores the future of Thai cooking—this is the cutting edge, where Thai food meets the rest of the world. Thai cooks are embracing the influx of foods from abroad, as they always have, and are using it to create something new. Exciting fusions with Italian, Mexican, French, you name it, all with their particular Thai signature, making these recipes stand apart. Kay emphasizes that this is how Thai food has always been—it embraces new food cultures and ingredients and then turns them into something uniquely Thai.

This is a groundbreaking work that explores Thai cuisine in all its regional diversity and also looks forward to the exciting future of Thai food.