🍽 How to Eat Thai Food Correctly
And why it matters
Sawaddee Ka! 🙏🏼
I’ve been teaching people how to cook Thai food for over a decade, but I neglected to address one of the most basic of things: how to actually eat Thai food.
And yes, you can eat Thai food however you want to, but trust me when I say that if you learn how to eat Thai food the way Thai people do, your experience of the meal will actually be better!
This is the subject of my latest video:
This topic was suggested by a Hot Thai Kitchen Patreon member in our Discord server. He read the part in my first book where I addressed this issue, and suggested that it would make a great video. So true, because this is something that’s much better communicated in action!
Every time I have a Thai meal with non-Thais, my husband being one of them, I realize that there are many little things about the way we eat Thai food that is not obvious to people who didn’t grow up eating it this way.
I hope this video will make navigating a Thai meal easier, whether your next meal is at a local Thai restaurant or in Thailand!
Pailin is such a delight and enjoyment to watch on her videos. She is professional yet has a wonderful sense of humor. Now I know the proper way to eat Thai food. A fork and spoon!
this was such a great video. i feel like many "you're doing it wrong" posts can come across kind of...bristly haha but this was friendly, simple, educational, and made lots of sense! i always use a spoon for curry (because of the "soup" factor) but in other dishes involving rice i struggled at times with chopsticks, and i thought it was just because i was lacking the skill. but now i feel relieved to learn it's actually because they're not intended for that purpose at all.
my partner and i are both white, born and raised in the US (RI/MA). i notice if i give him a spoon and fork, the spoon will go untouched. so if there is something i think a spoon is better for, i only give him the spoon. and he uses it without question - doesn't mention it or go to the kitchen for a fork - so it just goes to show how ingrained it is here that a spoon on the table for eating purposes (vs. serving/condiments) is odd and thus doesn't even register unless it's your only option.
i will say that holding a fork like you have seen western-world folx do is very strange to me also - i have never seen anyone do that (unless it was anchoring a piece of food to be cut with a knife) and i wonder if there are regional and/or generational differences at play. i've always used my fork like you show for thai food, except in my dominant hand of course. it's all very interesting!