A CULINARY JOURNEY THROUGH THAILAND

A CULINARY JOURNEY THROUGH THAILAND

I retired to Thailand in 2017 after traveling the world and working as a chef for over 50 years. In that time, I lived and worked in 10 countries: the UK, Jamaica, Bermuda, Australia, the Falkland Islands, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, the USA, and Cambodia. I also visited dozens of countries when working on cruise ships. Except for the Falkland Islands, all of those countries had a large number of Thai restaurants in their major towns and cities.

This didn't happen by accident. In 2002, the Thai government launched the Global Thai Program, a diplomatic initiative with the aim of increasing the number of Thai restaurants worldwide. The state provided training programs, grants, and information to Thai investors who wanted to open restaurants abroad. As part of this campaign, Pad Thai, a dish with virtually no cultural history, was positioned as Thailand's national dish and pioneered a culinary campaign funded by the Thai government with 500 million baht, which would be valued at US$28 million today. This concept was later to be known as gastrodiplomacy or culinary diplomacy. The government believed that the project would contribute to tourism, agricultural and food exports, while also producing foreign income from overseas transactions of goods and services. It worked, as Thailand's cuisine has become a global sensation as a result of the project. The government initiative has played a role in the 300% increase in tourists headed to Thailand since the Global Thai Program started in 2002. In 2024, Thailand welcomed 35.6 million tourists, and a government survey revealed that one-third of these visitors cited Thai cuisine as one of the key reasons for their trip.

This journal features the most sought-after Thai dishes that Western travelers look for when visiting the “Land of Smiles.” It's free with any book purchase in the Retiree series of books on my website