By Jeremyangelo Galsim
With one of the richest street food cultures in the world, Thailand has been a center for street food since its adoption in the late 1960s. Since then, tourists from all over the globe flock to the streets of Thailand’s cities for the sole purpose of experiencing its food culture; a food culture that has placed its street food at its forefront.
As food scholar Joan Henderson puts it, Street food “is an attraction in itself, and the presence of vendors at work can add to the appeal of sites and events.” The street food culture in Thailand has continued to flourish because it deliberately appeals to a foreign audience by capitalizing on Western culinary tourism. The Western desire for cultural food is now a cornerstone for the preservation and economic prosperity of this unique aspect of Thai culture (Prapasawasdi et al. 184).
Originally, this topic was supposed to focus on the street food culture of Southeast Asia, but after further research, the Thai variant possessed so much rich culture that it deserved an exhibit in itself. I was aware that I wanted to do something with street food as it has played a role in my own life, but even more so in my dad’s life as he practically lived off of street food for many years in the Philippines.
Within this exhibit are a contemporary cookbook/travel guide, recovered footage from the late 1960s, and a website where tourists are able to book tours, including the food tours that the Thai tourism industry has found much success in.
The cookbook, Thailand’s Best Street Food by Chawadee Nualkhair, was chosen for its representation of the growing desire from Westerners to experience Thai street food. It functions as a guidebook for tourists who are unfamiliar with the street food culture which highlights the persistent sentiment of Westerners’ desire to experience “exotic” culture.
The recovered footage is exclusively on the YouTube channel Lost & Found Travel and features a compilation of clips taken from the beginnings of street food in Bangkok. The video features early renditions of street food and serves as a comparative source to the more contemporary sources that showcase food. In addition, this footage shows a Western woman ordering from an early food vendor, foreshadowing the eventual dominance and interdependence of street food culture and the tourism industry.
The website is a Thau Street Food Tour posted on the website Tripadvisor. The ratings and overall positivity in the pictures serve to verify the prosperity and interdependence of the street food and tourism industries, as the reviews and services show the overall satisfaction of many Westerners with the food tours. Furthermore, the description employs deliberate diction to appeal to the culinary colonialism intrinsic to tourists.
Works cited:
Henderson, Joan (2019). Street Food and Tourism: A Southeast Asian Perspective. In: Park, E., Kim, S., Yeoman, I. (eds) Food Tourism in Asia. Perspectives on Asian Tourism. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3624-9_4
Nualkhair, Chawadee. Thailand’s Best Street Food. Tuttle Publishing, 2014.
Urapree Prapasawasdi, Lunchakorn Wuttisittikulkij, Chaleeda Borompichaichartkul, Laphasrada Changkaew, Muhammad Saadi. Cultural Tourism Behaviors: Enhancing the Influence of Tourists’ Perceptions on Local Thai Food and Culture. The Open Psychology Journal, vol. 11, no. 1, 2018, pp. 184–197. doi:10.2174/1874350101811010184.
“Small-Group Chiang Mai Evening Street Food Tour Provided by Chiang Mai Street Food Tours: Thailand.” Tripadvisor, www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductReview-g293917-d11990715-Small_Group_Chiang_Mai_Evening_Street_Food_Tour-Chiang_Mai.html.
“Thai Street Food 60’s Bangkok”. YouTube, uploaded by Lost & Found Travel, 15 December 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=235cul020_Y.
