Thai Food

Thai cuisine is the national cuisine of Thailand. Thai cuisine places emphasis on lightly-prepared dishes with strong aromatic components. Thai cuisine is known for being spicy. Balance, detail and variety are important to Thai cooking. Thai food is known for its balance of five fundamental flavors in each dish or the overall meal: hot (spicy), sour, sweet, salty, and (optional) bitter.

Although popularly considered a single cuisine, Thai food would be more accurately described as four regional cuisines corresponding to the four main regions of the country: Northern, Northeastern (or Isan), Central, and Southern, each cuisine sharing similar foods or foods derived from those of neighboring countries and regions: Burma, the Chinese province of Yunnan and Laos to the north, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam to the east and Malaysia to the south of Thailand. In addition to these four regional cuisines, there is also the Thai Royal Cuisine which can trace its history back to the palace cuisine of the Ayutthaya kingdom (1351-1767 CE). Its refinement, cooking techniques and its use of ingredients were of great influence to the cuisine of the Central Thai plains.

Thai meals typically consist of either a single dish or rice (khao) with many complementary dishes served concurrently and shared by all. It is customary to serve more dishes than there are guests at a Thai meal.