Why Thai?

After our trip to China and Southeast Asia, I had a gastronomic question. Why way Thai food so ubiquitous throughout the world as opposed to Malaysian cuisine? In my opinion, Malay food was far more interesting in its flavors and its variety. Were there that many more Thai expats around the world than Malay?

In posing this question to many people casually I got no guidance. But the world nourishes those of pure heart such as de-I (fortunately for me the world evidently doesn't have forwarded to it any articles pertaining to de-I Sandia Outfitters). For just a few weeks ago in a food publication I follow there appeared an article talking about governments using food culture export to promote their standing in the world particularly for tourism.

The Number One Exemplar - Thailand

In 2003 the Thai government initiated a program to export Thai food culture to world explicitly to create a better awareness of Thailand and to promote increased tourism to Thailand. To this program involved providing financial support to Thai citizens that would agree to go to other countries and start restaurants. It negotiated with many other countries special visas to allow this to happen. Once that was successful, it was found that it was needed to provide better access to Thai specialty ingredients around the world which involved supporting food exporters.

The results have been as the government would have hoped with Thai cuisine found worldwide and tourism having grown substantially since the start of the program.

Now you know..