About Thai Recipes
In Asian cultures, rice plays the central part of every meal. That is to say that we eat everything with rice…well almost everything. The other important element of every meal, is that, we share many dishes with our family. Unlike the Western and Europe eating cultures where everyone has his or her own plate of selected food. We have many dishes prepared and put them in platters or bowls and place them in the middle of the table, each person is given a plate with rice and take what ever food they want from the middle of the table. Since everything is already cut up for you in all the dishes, we eat Thai food with fork and spoon.
 The spoon is in your right hand and the fork is in your left hand. You put food that you want to eat in the spoon and put the spoon in your mouth not the fork. Most Western and Europe cultures put the fork, which is in your left hand in your mouth because they have to cut their food. We also use chopsticks in Thailand and we have the Chinese to thank for introducing them to us. But we mainly use chopsticks when we eat noodles or rice porridge, which has many accompanying condiments. Fork and spoons were brought here to Thailand by Westerners and Europeans but we use them differently.
Thai history can be roughly divided into 4 main periods. The first is the Sukhothai period 1238-1350. It is called Sukhothai period because the center of the first Thai civilization was at the city of Sukhothai in the northern part of present day Thailand. Then came the Ayuthaya period 1350-1767. Yes as you guessed it the capital moved south to the city of Aythaya. This was the longest period, so far in Thai history when Siam opened up to the rest of the world and traded. Thai culture flourished and there were many outside influences, which transformed and developed Thai cuisine further. Now we see Thai cuisine come into its own, with its unique characteristics. As Ayuthaya fell to the invading Burmese, our capital moved down river to Thonburi (1767-17820). This period, under King Taksin the Great, Thailand spent most of its time recapturing land lost to the Burmese. This Thonburi period was brief only 15 years when the capital moved across the river to Bangkok. Rattanakorin period was born under the present Chakri Dynasty 219 years ago (1782-present). Thailand flourished the most in the arts and culture during peacetime.
