The good, the bad and the ugly: eastern spaghetti in Thailand1

Thanes Wongyannava
Abstract: Just as Spaghetti Westerns gained popularity in Thailand in the 1960s, so too did certain types of Italian cuisine, most notably macaroni and pizza. In present-day Bangkok, Italian food has come to dominate the lifestyle of the middle and upper-middle classes, albeit frequently adapted to Thai tastes: hence eastern spaghetti and pizza tom yam kung, with tomato ketchup on the side. It is commonplace for national cuisines to be adapted on importation into another country. Besides, Thai diners do not appear to be particularly concerned with authenticity so much so that one Italian restaurant in the Silom area, a business district of Bangkok, even placed a big banner in front of the building advertising inauthentic or hybrid Italian food under the slogan: Italian Food with Thai Flavour. Moreover, the most revered foreign cuisine in Thai culinary history was not Italian but French (and to some extent English), dating from the two visits made by King Chulalongkorn to Europe in 1897 and 1907. Nor does the current Italmania for food in Thailand come as a result of close diplomatic ties with Italy, but rather as a consequence of the popularity of Italian food in the UK and the USA, dating especially from the era of the Vietnam War. However, no matter how much Thais might love Italian cuisine, they prefer not to eat it on a daily basis, and many feel it to be too rich and greasy [lian], especially when living abroad with less access to familiar Thai dishes. Just as Chulalongkorn brought his own food supplies with him to Europe, so too do outbound Thai tour guides carry chilli paste and fish sauce. Former Thai Prime Minister Khukrit Pramoj summed up the experience of travelling abroad by noting that as a Thai he wanted rice, not bread. Of all
1

I would like to thank those who commented on this paper during the conference on The Ambiguous Allure of the West and the Making of Thai Identities, hosted by the Southeast Asia Center at Cornell University in November 2004. I am also grateful to Thanapol Limapichart, Farung Srikhaw, Kamoltip Chaengkamol, Cheeraphol Ketchumphol, Sutharin Koonphol, Sumon Wongwonsri, Thongchai Winichakul and Patrick Jory for their remarks on the piece, and Thak Chaloemtiarana for the wonderful hospitality. South East Asia Research would also like to thank Mulaika Hijjas for her editorial work on the article.

South East Asia Research, 17, 3, pp 489509

490

South East Asia Research

the aspects of human behaviour, food habits are among the most difficult to change; nevertheless, change they do. Thais, especially the elite, do not have a monotheistic cuisine. If one can pay respect to Brahminism, animism, Buddhism, monarchism and Christianity, then one can also eat a variety of foreign foods. Keywords: culinary authenticity; Italian cuisine; French cuisine; King Chulalongkorn Author details: The author is a Lecturer in Political Science at the Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University, Bangkok 10200, Thailand. E-mail: twongyannava@hotmail.com.

The 1966 movie Phet tat phet [Diamond Cuts Diamond] is the title of one of the most popular ever Thai action films, its success marked by the fact that a Thai restaurant even named itself after the film; and when Sergio Leones For A Few Dollars More was released in Thailand, it took the related title, Meu peun phet tat phet [The Diamond-Cuts-Diamond Gunman]. The same applies to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which was named in Thai Meu peun phet tat phet II. Leones success, as well as the influx of other Spaghetti Westerns such as Sergio Corbuccis Django and Duccio Tessaris Ringo, to name but two, was making Hollywood Westerns redundant for Thai moviegoers. Italian cowboy films did indeed pose a threat to the American film industry. The term Spaghetti Western, coined by the Americans, was meant to be pejorative. The Italians defended themselves by using the term Macaroni Western instead. The popularity of using culinary terms to label inauthentic or alien westerns spread: there were Sauerkraut Westerns (produced in West Germany), Paella Westerns (international co-productions shot in Spain), Camembert Westerns (France), Chop Suey Westerns (Hong Kong) and Curry Westerns (from India). 2 Although American westerns could be considered authentic, since the genre was the one type of film in which Hollywood could claim originality and Americanness, the western in fact came to be reproduced in many parts of the world. Almost four decades after the Italian appropriation of the classic
2

Christopher Frayling (1981), Spaghetti Western: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, p xi.

Eastern spaghetti in Thailand

491

American film genre created the Spaghetti Western,3 Italian food has been adopted and adapted around the world. In Bangkok, Italian food has come to dominate the lifestyle of the Thai middle and upper-middle classes. According to the Thai manager of one Italian restaurant chain with 35 outlets, Italian cuisine is now part of their lives.4 Yet while the authenticity of Italian cuisine served outside Italy may be important to Italians and their government,5 it is of little interest to ordinary Thais, who prefer their Italian food to have a Thai flavour what might be called eastern spaghetti. From the time of King Chulalongkorn (r 18681910) who travelled to Italy, but for whom Italian food held no appeal to the present day, when Thai restaurant-goers prefer their pizza with tom yam kung topping, Thai judgments of foreign cuisines have not been concerned with issues of authenticity. That Italian food in Thailand is so different from how it is in Italy has to do not only with the commonplace adaptation that any cuisine undergoes when imported into a foreign country (the food served in Thai restaurants in Europe and America comes to mind), but also with the fact that the most revered foreign cuisine in Thai culinary history was not Italian but French. English cooking was also influential. In addition, the influence of a third country shaped the kind of Italian food served in Thailand namely, America. This paper explores the stages of Thai contact with Italian food, Thai consumers judgments of that food, and the evolution of eastern spaghetti.

King Chulalongkorns encounter with Italian food

Chulalongkorns first trip to Europe, in 1897, seems to have been an arduous experience with regard to food. At sea, he was unable to eat anything except boiled rice with nam phrik phao [red chilli paste mixed with shrimp]. But by the time of his second and final visit a decade later, he was very satisfied with the well prepared Thai and European food.6 On the voyage, he surprised all the Westerners on board by eating Thai food that he had brought along. Even after two-and-a-half
3 4 5

Frayling, supra note 2, at p xi. Bangkok Post, 30 March 2005. See, for instance, efforts to protect the authenticity of Neapolitan pizza, reported in Italys Pizza Police, Newshour, BBC Radio, May 2004. As Thai food has become more popular internationally, the Thai government has followed the same path, albeit with respect to the economy first and to culture only secondarily. King Chulalongkorn (1973), Klai ban Vol I [Far Away From Home, Vol I], Phrae Phithaya, Bangkok, pp 1516.

492

South East Asia Research

months in Europe, the King was still able to enjoy Thai meals, even if it was just simple food such as fried eggs dipped in shrimp sauce. On one occasion, he lamented that his entourage had thrown away the fish sauce that had been brought from Bangkok, but later admitted that even leftover chilli paste was better than none at all.7 During his trip to the Scandinavian countries, he had to cook nam phrik himself, but found the taste almost unbearable, declaring in a letter that he would certainly not have eaten it had he been in Bangkok.8 In the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, King Chulalongkorn enjoyed French baguettes, and even wished that they could be made in Siam.9 But however much he enjoyed Western food, he lamented that in Singapore he ate his last Thai meal and chewed his last betel-nut quid before he was forced to abandon everything Thai.10 After Singapore, he realized that the pleasure of eating Western food would diminish because from now on it was his only option. The further away from Thailand he was, the less he enjoyed Western food. In other words, he enjoyed Western food as long as it was only one choice among many, especially when accompanied by Thai food. Furthermore, eating Western food was less for enjoyment than for demonstrating his sophistication to Western elites. Arriving in Naples, the King was surprised not to find people dressed up in top hats, but rather only the bad classes: old people carrying belongings, children with ragged clothes playing in the streets and gambling with the money that they had obtained from picking pockets.11 Neapolitan food proved just as disappointing, with the King remarking that the local restaurants were so dirty that he had to eat at international restaurants instead. In this, he was probably no different from the many tourists who did not care to taste local Neapolitan cuisine. The King observed that large numbers of English tourists flocked to Italy and stayed in hotels with English names.12 He noted that the Italians were so poor they had to rely on tourism, and particularly upon English tourists.13 The phenomenon of foreign tourists searching out
7 8 9 10 11

12 13

Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 626. King Chulalongkorn (1973), Klai ban Vol II, Phrae Phithaya, Bangkok, p 97. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at pp 2122. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 36. Similarly, Prayoon Pamornmontri, one of the members of the coup group that overthrew the absolute monarchy in 1932, travelled through Italy in the 1920s and wrote that Italians in the south wore ragged clothes and were without shoes. Prayoon Pamornmontri (1975), Chiwit ha phaendin khorng khaphachao [My Life With the Five Reigns], Bannakit, Bangkok, p 91. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 278. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 284.

Eastern spaghetti in Thailand

493

food familiar to them was the norm at the time, with the idea of seeking out exotic food not yet widespread.14 The problem, therefore, was not only hygiene, but also that the local Italian food did not suit the palate of either the Thai monarch or the English tourists. Despite the lavish dishes he was served,15 among all the tastes of Naples the King enjoyed the spring water more than anything else.16 During the first course of one particular meal, he struggled to eat spaghetti. In a letter to his children, he described as a novelty the proper way of eating it, with the fork in the right hand and the spoon in the left.17 Since his time, practising how to eat spaghetti has continued to be a part of learning Western table manners among the Thai elite, especially before going abroad to study.18 While he listed the subsequent courses (boiled rice with chicken liver mixed with mozzarella and lemon, fried boneless fish with freshwater prawns and squid,19 followed by a beef dish), he found little to report about them. Nor was he impressed by Italian wine, declaring repeatedly that it had no taste (including the famous Chianti).20 In San Remo, King Chulalongkorn had to eat what he called khao tang [rice crust], a dish named by Prince Boripattara in which rice was formed in a hollow mould, turned out and filled with stuffing. However, he thought that the rice was undercooked, making it inedible no wonder, he stated, that Westerners had indigestion problems.21 When it came to the question of agriculture, he thought that the Mediterranean coast of Italy was very unlikely to produce enough food for local consumption, because he could not see any fields of corn or wheat, while the water supply was rather low, consisting of only small streams and creeks.22 In terms of both food and agriculture, then, he found Siam clearly superior to Italy.
14

15 16 17 18

19

20 21 22

See Lisa Heldke (2003), Exotic Appetites: Ruminations of a Food Adventurer, Routledge, London. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at pp 189191. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 195. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 195196. M.R. Jakkarod Jittapong (2004), Kao khao su quarter sut-thai haeng chiwit, quarter thi neung: chiwit tang-tae koet jon banlu nitiphawa, 24872507 B.E. [Approaching the Last Quarter of Life, First Quarter: From Birth to Adulthood, 19441964], Nanmi Publications, Bangkok, p 85. Surprisingly, the King had little to say about eating this dish, which included squid ink, even though generally the Siamese did not eat this. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 196. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 250. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at pp 236237. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 265.

494

South East Asia Research

King Chulalongkorn also visited a restaurant for the poor during a local holiday, but he remarked that the meat soup with luk deuai [Jobs tears], garnished with cheese, was tasteless.23 The beef stew contained only a small piece of beef, contradicting the false assumption that Westerners ate a lot of meat. Ordinary Italian food at the time consisted of onions or other vegetables sauted in olive oil, then eaten with bread.24 Not only was the diet of ordinary Neapolitans impoverished,25 in the Kings view it also contained too much garlic.26 This did not suit the tastes of the Thai elite, as garlic was associated with the Chinese. Along with a similarity the king noted between the Italians use of olive oil and the use of lard by the Chinese,27 this no doubt brought down the Kings estimation of the Italian style of cooking.

The rise and fall of French cuisine in Bangkok

Of all Western cuisines, the French has been the most highly venerated in Thailand, especially within the top echelons of Thai society. King Chulalongkorn undoubtedly preferred the food of France. Nevertheless, he still thought that the mineral water from Evian that he was served was tasteless.28 In Paris, he was impressed by the world-renowned restaurant, La Tour dArgent, writing of the popularity of its famous pressed duck (of which he ate two). However, Chulalongkorns random selection of dishes from the menu displeased the French chef, and eventually the King allowed the chef to choose for him. The thick soup and fish with sauce and prawns delighted the King, who admitted he had never had anything like it before. He praised all the dishes as very delicious, words he had never used when talking about Italian cuisine.29 In fact, Chulalongkorn even preferred English cuisine to that of Italy though he found the banquet he attended at Windsor too fastidious.30 The King translated Western cookbooks for the Thai court, although it is impossible to establish what books he used as his sources or the
23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30

Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 356. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at pp 357358. Carole M. Counihan (2004), Around the Tuscan Table: Food, Family, and Gender in Twentieth Century Florence, Routledge, London, p 4. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 357. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 358. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 221. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at pp 698701. Chulalongkorn, supra note 6, at p 718.

Eastern spaghetti in Thailand

495

date of the translations. Some of the recipes for oatmeal soup and barley soup, for instance were suggested by a Western doctor as being beneficial for the Kings daughter.31 The Kings translation, probably the first Western cookbook in the Thai language, was first published in 1936.32 That the recipes in the royal cookbooks were not only for French but also for English cuisine shows the cultural as well as political influence of the English. Isabella Beetons The Book of Household Management was used by the Siamese elite from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.33 Under the influence of English cooking, savoury puddings became very popular, especially sheep brains and tongue pudding.34 English cuisine was a part of everyday life for many of the Siamese elite, whereas French cuisine was mainly for special occasions such as state functions. In contrast, the only Italian dish to appear in King Chulalongkorns Western cookbook was macaroni, then known as paeng lort [literally, tube flour] and considered a dish for special occasions.35 On the whole, however, Italian cuisine was not served at royal or state banquets. The royal chef, Khwankeo Vajarodaya, trained in Switzerland and cooked French cuisine. The influence of French haute cuisine continued as late as 1972, when the state banquet held for the visit of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh featured Consomm Royale, Mousse de Jambon, Glace Monte-Carlo, Caneton Braise lOrange, Pommes Croquette, Salade de Betterave and the local innovation named after the Bangkok palace, Bombe Chitlada Petits Fours. Both the white and red wines were French (Puligny Montrachet and Chateau Mouton Rothschild) and the champagne was
31

32

33

34

35

Chulalongkorn (2002), Tamra kap-khao farang [A Cookbook of Western Food], Amarin Printing, Bangkok, p 9. Khwankeo Vajarodaya, Preface, in Chulalongkorn, supra note 31. One of the first generation of the Thai cookbooks, Mae-khrua hua pa [The Lady Chef] by Plian Phatsakorawong, the wife of Chao Phraya Phatsakorawong (Phorn Bunnag), appeared in 1907, but prior to this well known lady cookbook came another Thai cookbook prepared by an American missionary in 1898, together with Tamra kap khao khorng Sam Jean (Rachanupraphan), which was published in 1890. However, the recipes of this missionary cookbook involved Western rather than Thai food. Nak-rian Darunee, Rongrian Kunlasatri and Wang Lang, eds (2003), Pathanukrom kan tham khorng khao khorng wan yang farang lae siam [Anthology of Cooking Main Dishes and Desserts in Western and Siamese Style], 2 ed, Sri Panya, Nonthaburi. Thanes Wongyannava (2003), Khwam pen anitjang khorng ahan jin chan sung nai krungthep: kan doen thang khorng ahan prachathippatai [The impermanence of Chinese haute cuisine in Bangkok: the path to democratic cuisine], Sinlapa watthanatham, Vol 24, No 4, February, p 134. Mae Ob (1927), Tamra kap-khao phiset [Cookbook for Special Dishes], Kasem Panich Publisher, Bangkok, p 5. Chulalongkorn, supra note 31, at p 107. Mae Ob, supra note 34, at p 7.

496

South East Asia Research

G.H. Mumm Cordon Rouge. Only the sherry was English (Sandeman).36 Italian cuisine and wine were almost unknown at Thai state banquets.

The rise of Italian food in Thailand

In todays Bangkok, however, Italian food is far more popular than French. An Italian chef who owns a small Italian restaurant in Bangkok claimed that probably one Italian restaurant opens every month.37 The number of Italian restaurants has grown so drastically that in 1999 Italian chefs decided to establish the Italian Chef Association of Thailand. Italian restaurants setting up in luxurious premises, such as hotels or shopping malls, are inevitable nowadays. Many of the five-star hotels in Thailand have Italian restaurants, though not necessarily French ones. Many big cities in Thailand also have Italian restaurants; and in 2009, nearly 1,000 were to be found in Bangkok alone. Although the first French restaurant in Bangkok, Le Chalet at the Erawan Hotel, was established as early as the 1950s38 and a Michelin three-star French restaurant was opened on the top floor of a hotel overlooking Lumpini Park in 2004, French restaurants have not done as well as Italian restaurants. Of the almost 200 restaurants listed in Bangkok: Dining & Entertainment, 2004, only 13 are French.39 Many French restaurants in Bangkok have gone out of business because French food is considered too complicated and pretentious, even among the Thai upper-middle and upper classes. As the number of Italian restaurants has dramatically increased, Italian food products, from cheese to wine, coffee to olive oil, etc, have also grown enormously in popularity. Between 1998 and 2002, for instance, sales of olive oil grew by 146.49%, while cheese sales leapt 650%.40 Demand for imported Italian foods has increased so rapidly that occasionally there are shortages, and local producers of Italian specialities have emerged. Mozzarella is now made in Hua Hin and mascarpone is produced in the North East. Like macaroni, which has
36

37

38 39

40

Thawatchai Theppituck (2004), Wine kheun toh maha-ratchini [Wines on the table of the great queen], Taste: Krungthep Thurakit Newspaper, 13 August, p 15. Interview with Chef O, 24 August 2004. The real names of the chefs interviewed for this paper have been withheld. Bangkok Post, 2 July 1960. The restaurants listed in this magazine seem to be only those considered suitable for Western tourists. Thailands Trade Information System, Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Commerce, Thailand.

Eastern spaghetti in Thailand

497

been popular since the late nineteenth century, in the late twentieth century Italian pasta, especially black pasta, overtook macaroni as a part of middle-class Bangkokian meals. Squid ink dishes, particularly pasta, have become some of the most sought-after dishes among Thai fans of Italian cuisine. Tiramisu, although considered very rich by some Thais, especially the older generation (due to its creaminess)41 has become the most popular Italian dessert in Thailand. In addition, various types of Italian coffee have followed in the wake of Italian cuisine, but its growth is due to the expansion of American companies that have introduced Italian coffee to Thai customers, rather than the Italians themselves. For Thais, macaroni, rather than spaghetti, is most associated with Italy.42 From schools to business cafeterias, macaroni has become a part of Thai daily food. Thai fried macaroni, whether with shrimp or chicken, is always mixed with ketchup and onion. Meanwhile, macaroni tho [macaroni in a bowl],43 was a popular dish in the 1960s, although it is little heard of now.44 In Thailand, Italmania for food is not a direct result of relations between Thailand and Italy itself. Unlike America, the UK or even France, Italy does not have a sizable expatriate community in Thailand, and the Italian Embassy does not have an organization promoting its culture on a par with the Goethe Institute, the Alliance Franaise or the British Council. Italy never had particularly close ties with Siam, except in terms of the arts and architecture. Even this influence has been supplanted with the predominance of the American influence in art and architecture since the 1960s. The era of the far-sighted geopolitical vision of Chulalongkorn who turned to Italian artists and architects to counter-balance the expansionism of other European
41

42

43

44

Si Mon [the pseudonym of Maliwan Simon] (2003), Ahan thai bon toh farang [Thai Food on the Western Table], 2 ed, Wiriya Company, Bangkok, p 116. Si Mons articles on food were published in the legendary womens magazine Satri san before appearing as a book. Thidarat Noisuwan (2001), Sip thalay [Ten Seas], Amarin, Bangkok, p 115. Many decades ago when international football matches were televised, the announcer would call the Italians the macaroni team, and the term macaroni is still used to refer informally to Italians. The closest Italian dish I can think of is probably Baked Timbale of Ziti Pasta, which is a typical dish made for weddings in the province of Caserta in Campania. See Antonio Carluccio and Priscilla Carluccio (1997), Carluccios Complete Italian Food, Quadrille Publishing, London, p 161. Anusorn nai ngan chaphanakit sop nang sao Sangiam Khunakom na wat plapachai [Cremation Volume for Miss Sagiam Khunakom at Wat Plapachai], 9 June 1966, p 29.

498

South East Asia Research

countries45 is today just a reverie of Thai nationalism. While many Thai artists were once trained in Italy and accepted Corrado Feroci (known among Thais as Silpa Bhirasri) as the founding figure of modern Thai art, todays younger generation of artists whose names are known internationally no longer have an Italian education. The former appreciation for Italian arts and architecture has vanished, while Italian cuisine, which was never previously appreciated, is now highly regarded. What can have brought about this change?

The ugly Italian? American fast food and Italian cooking

The expansion of Italian cuisine in Thailand has in part been a consequence of the popularity of Italian food in England and more particularly in the USA. Also, as a healthy diet has become a major concern among the educated class, olive oil has been widely publicized as being healthy, which has complemented the image of Italian cuisine as healthy. Italian cuisine outside Italy, especially in the USA, is the cuisine of northern Italy. The revival of Italian cuisine in the USA in the 1980s46 has had a major impact on the expansion of Italian cuisine in Thailand from the early 1990s by introducing only northern Italian food and chefs. This is not the first time that the AngloAmericans have played a major role in the popularization of foreign food in Thailand. Pizza parlours have in fact been around for more than 40 years, with early examples such as the Pizza Shack and Marios Pizza, which opened as a result of the American presence in Bangkok at the beginning of the Vietnam War. Marios Pizza is probably the oldest pizza restaurant in Bangkok, serving not Italian-style but American-style pizza. When the Vietnam War ended, the American franchised eating places closed, due to the unpopularity of the food itself as well as the problem of the low incomes of Bangkokians at that time, which made it difficult for them to afford expensive fast food.47 In Bangkok, fast food was never associated with cheap food. Eating out in Bangkok was generally considered expensive.48 It was not until the late 1970s, after economic growth and
45

46

47

Leopoldo Ferri de Larara and Paolo Piazzardi (undated), Italians at the Court of Siam, Amarin Printing, Bangkok, p 73. Linda Civitello (2004), Culture and Cuisine: A History of Food and People, John Wiley & Sons, New York, pp 302303. Ponsawan Wongkanchanakul (2000), An empirical analysis of a franchise system in Thailand focused on the fast food business: case study of the Pizza Public Co Ltd success franchisee in Thailand, unpublished Masters thesis, Department of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, pp 78.

Eastern spaghetti in Thailand

499

the expansion of the Thai middle class, that franchised fast-food outlets were re-established in Bangkok.49 The first American franchise pizza outlet opened in Pattaya in December 1980.50 Its target group was foreign tourists, because the franchise holder, William Heinecke, was uncertain whether pizza would be accepted by Thais. As Heinecke noted, if Thais were not willing to come to our restaurant, then we could rely on foreign tourists and the [US] marines.51 American franchise pizza aimed solely at foreign tourists was based on the assumption that Thai people could not accept fast food as a full meal.52 American pizza in Thailand, therefore, was made for the Americans. In 1966, however, a Thai pizza franchise was born. The first restaurant was the Narai Pizzeria in the Narai Hotel. Before the explosion of Italian food in the early 1990s, this was Bangkoks most popular pizza outlet, and its success led to the establishment in 1987 of a franchise independent of the hotel. By the year 2000, Narai Pizzeria, which runs under the slogan of The Best Pizza in Thailand, had 23 branches, compared with 116 Pizza Huts.53 Between 1990 and 1996, the four major segments of the fast-food market consisted of fried chicken, making up 40% of the market; pizza, 25%; hamburgers, 20%; and doughnuts, 15%.54 Fried chicken seemed to suit Thai tastes already familiar with roasted and fried chicken. However, the second most popular form of fast food, pizza, was something quite new to the Thai palate. Although, as indicated above, pizza has been sold in Bangkok for more than 50 years, it was originally limited to the upper and upper-middle classes in Bangkok. But as the number of students graduating from the USA has grown, American cultural influence has spread to all areas of life.

Traditionalism and innovation

While the pizza served in Bangkok from the 1960s was American style, by the 1990s local franchises had created the new khi mao kai pizza,
48 49

50 51 52 53 54

Margaretta B. Wells (1966), Guide to Bangkok, Christian Bookstore, Bangkok, p 126. Mister Donut was the first successful pioneer, appearing in 1978. Ponsawan Wongkanchanakul, supra note 47, at p 9; and from the mid-1980s, McDonalds took Bangkok by storm. Ponsawan, supra note 47, at p 54. Pizza cuts a big slice of success, Bangkok Post, 28 January 1999. Ponsawan, supra note 47, at p 9. Ponsawan, supra note 47, at p 22. Ponsawan l, supra note 47, at p 21.

500

South East Asia Research

topped with stir-fried chicken with holy basil and lots of chilli, a dish named after heavy drinkers [khi mao] who love to eat very hot food. Following this successful innovation, more new toppings have been introduced to suit Thai tastebuds, including tom yam kung [hot and sour prawn soup] topping. Apart from these innovative toppings, many Thais prefer to have ketchup on their pizza. Fast-food pizzerias always give four or five sachets of ketchup to customers. S. Tsow, a lecturer at Thammasat University, defended the Thai culture of mixing things up, food-wise in an article published in The Bangkok Post in 1999. He said that for Americans or Italians, putting ketchup on pizza was blasphemy and completely unacceptable, but suggested that: if these intolerant foreigners would just try some ketchup on their pizza, they would find that it actually tastes pretty good. I was ideologically opposed to this innovation myself, until I tried it. Ordinarily the Thai habit of mixing things up, food-wise, is an entirely praiseworthy phenomenon. To take two or more existing products and combine them in new and imaginative ways is a sign of cleverness, of ingenuity indeed, of creative genius.55 Like many other Thais, Tsow claims that ingenuity and adaptation are essential components of the Thai character. He also believes that the Thais have been so far too restrained in the adaptations they have made to Western foods. He thinks that they should go much further. Tsows advocacy of intensified localization would no doubt displease Italian purists (it should be noted that Tsow himself has limits, since he considers mixing Scotch whiskey with Coca-Cola to be the ultimate sin!) Innovation is not, however, out of the question for the Italians. On the contrary, as Nino Bergese, the most celebrated Italian chef of the twentieth century once said, a chef has to be inventive and refined. and a great cook, at once a faithful interpreter of traditional cuisine and capable of exceptional new dishes.56 The absence of a tradition of Italian cooking makes culinary innovation by chefs in Bangkok almost inevitable, especially as Thai diners are not concerned about the authenticity of their food. Authentic cooking
55 56

S. Tsow, Mixing things up, food-wise, Bangkok Post, 20 June 1999. Jeffrey Steingarten (1997), Hail Cesare, in The Man Who Ate Everything, and Other Gastronomic Feats, Disputes, and Pleasurable Pursuits, Alfred A, Knopf, New York, pp 207208.

Eastern spaghetti in Thailand

501

that does not agree with Thai tastes will be considered bad. For instance, Thais who visit Beijing believe that Peking duck in Bangkok restaurants is definitely much better than it is in its homeland. Thai chefs who cook foreign food seem as little concerned with authenticity as their customers. As Vipavee Charoenpura, the owner of one Italian restaurant said, our food is not fixed, it is adjustable. For example, salmon can be eaten with jaew, a hot-chilli-fish-sauce.57 In fact, such a combination does not occur only with Italian food, but also with German cuisine. For example, schweinehachse, a German dish of deep-fried pork knuckle, can be found in many Thai restaurants, where it is eaten with hot and spicy fish sauce rather than with mustard. Chef T, a very famous and popular Thai chef who cooks Italian food in a Thai style, also confirms the business imperative to adapt to suit the Thai palate. Even in high-end Italian restaurants designed in a minimalist and modern style, Chef T claims that the Italian chefs eventually have to adapt to Thai tastes by, for example, adding chilli to their dishes.58 This Thai attitude is the opposite to that of the feminist philosopher Lisa Heldke who invokes the attitude of the food adventurer in order to attempt to understand faithfulness to a culture not ones own.59 Nevertheless, since 2002 the Italian Embassy in Thailand has made attempts to protect the authenticity of Italian cuisine, setting up a programme to train Thai chefs and others interested in Italian food.60 Culinary traditionalism is not restricted to the Italians: the Thai government has also tried hard to set standards for self-proclaimed Thai traditional cuisine, because it knows perfectly well how much money can be earned from national cuisine, domestically and internationally, once people, especially Westerners, wish to eat authentic cuisine. There is probably no authentic foreign cuisine in Thailand, even including Indian and Chinese cooking. For Chinese cuisine, which has been in Thailand for hundreds of years, localization and adaptation to Thai tastes has been inevitable.61 When a Michelin-starred French restau57

58 59 60 61

Rera [pen-name of M.L. Jirathorn Jiraprawat] (2004), Pakasinlapa: reuang khorng sen [The Art of Cooking: The Story of Noodles], Srisara, Bangkok, p 51. Vipavee Charoenpura started experiencing Italian food while she was studying in England. Interview with Chef T, 17 September 2004. Heldke, supra note 14, at p 26. The course is no longer open to non-professionals. See Thanes Wongyannava (2001), Cooking modernities: cooking Thai, cooking Chinese and yum-ing them all, paper presented at the International Symposium on Everyday Life Experience of Modernity in Thailand: An Ethnographic Approach, 1314 January, Suan Bua Thani Resort, Chiang Mai, Thailand.

502

South East Asia Research

rant opened a branch in Thailand, the manager of the restaurant was surprised that customers mainly wanted to order rocket salad, even though the restaurant had more sophisticated salads to offer. All restaurateurs in Bangkok know the limitations of their customers tastes. In 2004, the managing director of the Montien Hotel group, Montien Tantakit, opened a Chinese restaurant, saying that Thai customers did not want to eat authentic Chinese food, which emphasized meat and poultry dishes and was very greasy.62 For Giannmaria Zanotti, the chef and owner of a famous Italian restaurant in Bangkok, The taste of our food does not need to be adapted. The taste we serve here is traditional. I dont think that Italian cuisine needs to adapt itself to Thai tastes. And Thai cuisine does not have to adapt itself to the palate of Italians. Whatever kind of ingredients a cuisine has, one must stick to those ingredients. If this changes, it is not the national cuisine.63 Authentic here therefore means replicable, either in terms of method or ingredients.64 But following a particular method and set of ingredients is not necessarily the way to authenticity. Zanotti admits that the biggest problem is that the flavour of food that is prepared by different people will vary accordingly. He also notes an important aspect of cooking foreign food in Thailand: Thai food has a Thai flavour. Italian food has an Italian flavour. French food has a French flavour. This is the problem of the restaurant If I am a chef and I want to study Thai cuisine, I will take two or three weeks, then I will be able to do it because I have the basics in cooking Thai food. But after a while, I will automatically add something which is an Italian technique into it This is the same problem that is happening to my Thai chefs two weeks after I allow them to cookBut this is not a major problem that cant be solved, since we have not prepared something different from the tradition.65 This means then that only Italians are able to cook Italian food authentic62 63 64 65

Post Today, Section D, 13 August 2004. Rera, supra note 57, at p 34. Heldke, supra note 14, at p 29 Rera, supra note 57, at pp 3435.

Eastern spaghetti in Thailand

503

ally. That is, unless it is cooked by an Italian, authenticity in Italian cuisine in Thailand is unsustainable, because the Thai who is employed in an Italian restaurant in Thailand has not grown up in the tradition of Italian cooking. To implant the tradition may not be a big problem for those who run the business, but it also requires tight control and discipline after the long process of training. As long as there is no strict supervision, the cultural transmission of foreign cuisine thus becomes a major problem. To have authentic Italian cuisine, one needs ironfisted control, rather than the relaxed attitude to cooking that is portrayed by the rich and famous in glossy magazines.66 Cooking as a profession is not for relaxing and enjoyment, so a laissez-faire attitude is incompatible with the ideal of authenticity, especially when the chefs are not native Italians. The Italian chefs who own the restaurants do not generally cook for their customers. Instead, those who cook are Thais trained by Italians whose ability to reproduce true Italian taste is therefore subject to doubt. Most Italian dishes sold in Bangkok, even at five-star hotels, are not sophisticated or complicated, but are mainly simple home-style cooking.67 The Italian chefs will only prepare food for important social and political figures, for whom they cook speciality dishes. Culinary traditionalism with regard to Italian food is not just a question of authenticity, but also of business, and the chefs will not instruct their Thai counterparts on how to prepare these dishes. In the world of haute cuisine, where competition is great, even if all the techniques employed by authentic master chefs are passed on, none of the employees are thought or trusted to be able to reproduce their effects. The Thai method encapsulated in the saying khru phak lak jam [when the master takes a break, one steals and memorizes], which is a well known method of knowledge transmission, is therefore necessary for Thai chefs. But the khru phak luk jam method renders authentic cultural transmission impossible.

Thai views on Italian food

No matter how much Thais might love Italian cuisine, they could not stand having it every day; nor does the popularity of Italian cuisine in
66

67

From the British Independent Television (ITV) series, Hells Kitchen, it is evident that world-renowned chefs have an authoritarian way of conducting their business. Interview with Chef S, 7 September 2004. This Italian chef has been working in five-star hotels in Thailand for three years. Like Chef B and Chef O, he is also from the northern part of Italy. It seems that most Italian chefs in Bangkok come from northern Italy.

504

South East Asia Research

Bangkok mean that every Bangkokian appreciates it. After living in Sienna for six months and eating pasta at every meal, Jakkai Siributr, a well known Thai artist specializing in textiles, felt that Italian cuisine was lian [rich], despite his initial feeling that he could never tire of it. The thought of having Italy as his second home eventually vanished; he admitted that it could only be a place that he would like to visit frequently as a tourist.68 In the end, he could not change his palate, and his efforts to transform himself into an Italian proved impossible. Reow Kittikorn and his friends, who work for a Thai film company, once had to attend the Milan film market. When there, Kittikorn found that he could not eat Italian, but only Chinese food. In a Chinese restaurant, they met a Thai businessman who was in Milan to buy films for his company; and who also wanted to eat only Chinese food while there. After a couple of days in Italy, all had become sick of eating spaghetti and Italian food. One Thai decided not to eat spaghetti any more, but Kittikorn, in his own words, had to swallow it down. He commented somewhat sarcastically in his book that this was a good way to lose weight,69 portraying himself as a person who did not even know how to speak English, and had hardly any experience of travelling abroad. Kittikorn did not enjoy eating Italian food even when he was in Italy itself. No matter how much the world praises Italian cuisine, it is not tasty for Kittikorn. Kittikorn is like many other Thais and people in various parts of the world who cannot adapt their tastes when they travel abroad. Just as Chulalongkorn took his own food supplies with him, over a century later most outbound Thai tour guides still have to bring along dried nam phrik [chilli paste], fish sauce and dried chillies to please their Thai clients who are generally unable to eat any other kinds of cuisine, except Thai or spicy food. Former Thai Prime Minister Kukrit Pramoj once revealed that when he travelled abroad he wanted to eat the local food and tried to avoid any kind of food that suited his palate, but in the end he could not do it. He realized that he was strongly attached to the tastes that were familiar to him. As a Thai, what he wanted was rice, not bread.70
68

69

70

Jakkai Siributr (2003), Deum din kin daet [Drinking Earth, Eating Sunlight], Rawang banthat, Bangkok, p 51. Reow Kittikorn [pseudonym of Kittikorn Reowsirikul] (2004), Tak nao thi festival [Winter at the Festival], Dork ya, Bangkok, pp 4042. Kukrit Pramoj (1968), Nai loke khorng phom, lem 1 [In My World, Vol 1], Kao na Press, Bangkok, pp 6667.

Eastern spaghetti in Thailand

505

Kukrit differs completely from the Director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, Jutamart Siriwan, who prefers to eat the local food as much as possible whenever she travels, wanting to discover local tastes.71 Yet she admits that local food is generally a problem for those who travel, regardless of nationality: Eating and food are a major problem for those who travel abroad, no matter whether they are Thai or farang [Western] or other nationalities. The cause of the problem is that the taste of the food of different nationalities is different. As the monks would say, we are attached to our taste. When we go to a place that does not have food which has the taste we are familiar with, it causes us difficulty.72 As Director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand who has to travel to many countries to promote tourism for Thailand, Jutamart undoubtedly needs to develop her own palate to suit Western cuisine. Nevertheless, she also desires authentic foreign food, such as Italian food, in Thailand, and she knows the places where she can eat authentic Italian food. But she never gives any comment on the difference between the authenticity of Italian food in Bangkok and in Italy. According to Kukrit, who said that the longer one stays abroad, the more one desires to have rice; once one returns home, one longs for Western food,73 Jutamarts desire to eat authentic foreign food is thus the result of her experience in travelling abroad for long periods of time and starting to acquire a new taste for foreign food. The ability to have a taste for foreign food is seen as a reflection of the cosmopolitan lifestyle of the Thai upper-middle class; whereas Thai commoners prefer to have inauthentic, localized Italian food. The authenticity of foreign food is a disappointment when it comes to Thai consumers, who discover that food in Italy is not what they had anticipated. For Jakkai, the food and wine in Italy were like ambrosia and nectar. But when Si Mon travelled in the dreamy land of Italy where one could dine under the sunlight, she found instead that her life was full of bitterness, not only in terms of the poor quality of the food, but also price-wise. She commented that the liquid that she had in the hotel did not smell like coffee, and turned grey when she added milk to
71

72

Kanokwan Phornphiranon, Thiaw sanuk rap pi mai kap phu-wa thor-thor-thor [Enjoy travelling at New Years time with the Director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand), pp 3839. Kukrit Pramoj, supra note 70, at p 66.

506

South East Asia Research

it. Good Italian coffee, she believes, does not exist in Italy, but only in her fantasy of Italy. She recalled that every time her husband paid the bill it made him realize that the food at home was incomparable with the Italian food served in restaurants in Italy.74 Furthermore, she thought that even Italian food in Germany was much better than in Italy, especially in terms of price. For Si Mon, having said that the best Italian restaurants were to be found outside Italy according to her, the best Italian restaurant, especially in terms of atmosphere, is in Kowloon, Hong Kong.75 A review of Marios Pizza in Bangkok by Friar Tuck published in the discontinued English newspaper Bangkok World in 1969, concurred, stating that the country of origin did not produce the best Italian food. It is a curious fact that, by and large, Italy is not the place to go to eat the best pizza, pastas, spaghetti, and lasagna. He added this absurd tale, which reveals something about tastes in cuisine: There is a story, probably apocryphal, of a state-side couple that went on a car trip of Italy who stopped for the night at a small town hotel and were given a spaghetti dinner. When the guests had eaten their fill and conveyed to the manageress/cook how wonderful it had tasted, she beamed and pulled out the box from which she had taken the spaghetti to show them. It should, she said with pride, Its the best American kind.76 According to these Thai diners, there is no guarantee that the best national cuisine is to be found in the country of origin; on the contrary, the best cuisine may in fact be found elsewhere. The best Italian cuisine is in the country where one lives, such as the USA or Germany, but not in the country of origin, the country of authenticity. Following this line of thought, it is no surprise to hear some Thais assert that the best Chinese food is to be found in India, or even that the Thai food in Los Angeles is much better than that in Bangkok. Despite the fact that the belief that good Italian food lies elsewhere seems to be too vulgar for those who search for authenticity, inauthentic food is also desirable for many. Although the number of Italian restaurants has grown so much that Italian food now appears in up-market food courts on the top floors of
73 74

75 76

Kukrit Pramoj, supra note 70, at p 68. Si Mon (2003), Phak-chi, bai horm, horapha, saranae [Chinese Parsley, Spring Onion, Sweet Basil and Mint], 2 ed, Wiriya Company, Bangkok, p 146. Si Mon, supra note 74, at p 149. Friar Tuck, Mario Pizza Restaurant, Bangkok World, 25 July 1969.

Eastern spaghetti in Thailand

507

well known department stores in Bangkok, not all Italian food is accepted by Thais. Polenta is not particularly popular, and risotto is another relatively unacceptable dish. For Thais, risotto looks like dog vomit, which is too disgusting to eat.77 Who would like to eat a dish that looks like ugly dog vomit [uak ma]? Not so many, of course. One Thai chef who cooks Italian food himself does not like risotto, though he cooks it for the customers in his restaurant.78 Vipavee Charoenpura more delicately describes risotto as being like khao tom [boiled rice], but she still likes the taste of risotto, especially shrimp risotto garnished with cheese.79 The Thai abhorrence of risotto is perhaps to do with its difference from Thai rice. Arborio, baldo, carnolli and vialone roma are considered too tough for the Thais, especially the kernel, whether it is the expensive carnolli or the cheap vialone nano. So Thais think that risotto is too raw and hard. Following this food preference, pasta al dente is out of the question for many Thais, as for many British and Americans. No matter how good the risotto prepared by the Italians is, it is difficult for Thais who are familiar with eating soft rice to enjoy the hardness of risotto, or indeed to come to terms with its appearance and flavour.

Conclusion
As Italian cuisine has become popular in Bangkok, its aesthetics has inevitably ended up with the good, the bad and the ugly of Italian cuisine produced by various types of people from Italians to Thais. The problem of cooking Italian food may be no different from that described by Friar Tuck almost 30 years ago: The main characteristic of Italian restaurants in Bangkok is that the quality of their offering is so uneven. I have been to each any number of times, and have been served a hard, dry pizza one time, then returned after a while to have a soft, perfectly good pizza placed before me, the owner protesting all the while that the chef has not been changed.80 Whether it is an American pizza place or an Italian restaurant, making
77

78 79

80

One of the Thai chefs whom I interviewed made this interesting remark, but his name must be withheld. Interview with Chef T, 17 September 2004. Rera, supra note 57, at p 52. As dairy products have become a part of food culture in Thailand, cheese has become very popular among urban, educated Thais. Friar Tuck, supra note 76.

508

South East Asia Research

pizza or pasta in Thailand is more than simply a question of cultural imperialism. As long as they do not suit the tastes of its local customers, it is useless to identify the authenticity of cultural products. Chef B, who has been working as a chef in a top five-star hotel in Bangkok for almost a quarter of a century, also pointed out the complexity of making pizza here in Thailand. He argues that the high humidity of Thailand makes pizza soften easily, so it is possible that it is not as good as in the West where the humidity is not as high. He estimated that only approximately 50% of Italian restaurants could be classified as good.81 Whether this figure is correct or an exaggeration is hard to tell. But what he said shows that even when pizza is made in the Italian style, the taste is different. Italian food in Bangkok is different from in Italy, though the attempt to maintain the tradition is there. One Italian restaurant in the Silom area, a business district of Bangkok, placed a big banner in front of the building advertising Italian Food with Thai Flavour. Advertising inauthentic or hybrid Italian food in this way means that authenticity cannot be sold among the Thais. Persuading Thai customers to come to taste inauthentic Italian food whose taste is not lian like most Western cuisine is completely different from the quest for, as well as the attempt to sell, authentic food in American and European cities. Defence of the authenticity of Italian cuisine is an attempt to expand monotheistic cuisine, in which the spirit of cultural culinary vanguardism goes beyond the boundary of the nation-state as Italian cuisine continues to expand. The monotheistic cuisine that has been constructed and orchestrated through the unified nation-state does not provide a space for polytheistic cuisine. The tradition has only recently been invented within the sphere and consciousness of the bounded nation-state: for example, Italy with tomato sauce in 1830,82 France with wine in the nineteenth century83 and Thailand with tom yam kung. Respecting the difference means accepting the bounded nation-state whose sovereignty needs to be recognized. Respecting the tradition of national cuisine is thus a tribute to national sovereignty. Under the doctrine of respecting differences, authenticity indicates
81 82

83

Interview with Chef B, 24 August 2004. Massimo Montanari (1996), The Culture of Food, translated by Carl Ipsen, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, p 144. Kolleen M. Guy (2002), Rituals of pleasure in the land of treasures: wine consumption and the making of French identity in the late nineteenth century, in Warren Belasco and Philip Scranton, eds, Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies, Routledge, London, p 41.

Eastern spaghetti in Thailand

509

the will to convert the other, rather than accepting others. In the age of culture as a fixed property, the idea of when in Rome do as the Romans do has not gone out of fashion, because the new Roman Empire is expanding as if everyone is under its one overarching roof. Everyone in this new Empire has to be converted to the concept of monotheistic cuisine. Nevertheless, the notion of when in Rome also produces the counter-notion of when in Bangkok do as the Bangkokians do. In other words, when in Bangkok cook as the Bangkokians eat. This does not mean that one has to venerate the traditions of Bangkokian cuisine, because in Bangkok, as in any other big city, the tradition of eating is a changing one. Of all the changes in human behaviour, food habits are among the most difficult to change; nevertheless, change they do. Thais, especially the elite, do not have a monotheistic cuisine. If one can pay respect to Brahminism, animism, Buddhism, monarchism and Christianity, then one can also eat a variety of foreign foods. It is in no way sinful to enjoy food that is not at all like mother used to make, as long as it can be localized. Is it possible for Thais to accept that eating Italian cuisine, or any other kind of foreign cuisine for that matter, means that one has to be a part of a process of defamiliarization involved in enjoying different cultural products? If it is not possible, does this then mean that if one cannot accept such difference one must eat only Thai cuisine? If so, then even the Thais will have to refrain from eating Thai food because it keeps on changing. They will also need to remain vigilant as to the origins of their own beloved authentic national dishes: the renowned tom yam kung with nam phrik phao was probably created only after the Second World War by the Chinese!