Think of a favourite dish and then consider the various ingredients that come together to make it. You'll see that they are drawn from many different sources, some of them borrowed from other culinary traditions. One good example is pad Thai. Almost everything that goes into it is Chinese, from the small-gauge rice noodles to the tofu, beansprouts, hua chai po (Chinese turnip), Chinese leeks, dried shrimp, peanuts and even the duck eggs (in the past, ducks in Thailand were raised by Chinese). In terms of its ingredients, this familiar dish is Chinese from top to bottom, although whether it was a Thai or a Chinese cook who first prepared it, I don't know.
These examples show that the practice of borrowing cooking ingredients from other cultures has been going on for a long time. No one can say when it started, and it is normal in all national and ethnic culinary cultures. The exchange of cooking ingredients and techniques connects different cultures, and will continue to do so, generating new dishes that no one living now will taste for many years.
Culinary borrowing of this kind falls into two basic categories. The first involves taking a foreign dish in its entirety and then adapting it to local tastes, exchanging some of the original ingredients for local ones. Some good examples are kaeng karee kai and kaeng massaman nuea.
Thai cooks take these dishes from their Muslim or Indian places of origin and adapt them to local cooking practices. The chicken or beef is stir-fried with curry spices first, then coconut cream is added and the mixture is simmered until the meat is extremely tender. Finally, additional seasonings are added to create the desired taste. This is the same technique used in cooking the coconut cream-based spicy Thai curries called kaeng phet. (Indian and Muslim cooks don't simmer the meat and seasoned coconut cream first; they mix all of the ingredients together at once and then simmer them.)
Once these curries had been adopted in Thailand, Chinese cooks began preparing them in their own style. For meat they used beef tendon, beef or pork and fried it with curry spices, adding a little bit of coconut cream, a larger amount of water mixed with flour, and sweet potatoes. They then spiced it very mildly compared with Thai, Muslim, and Indian cooks who preferred more potent seasonings.
Another type of borrowing involved adopting only certain foreign ingredients and combining them with those from the cook's own tradition to create a new type of dish. There are many Thai dishes that borrow heavily from Chinese food culture but have become so completely absorbed into the Thai repertoire that they are now thought of as completely Thai.
ADAPTED: Chinese-style kaeng karee, below, sold on Yaowarat.
One example is the yam dishes (hot sour salads). These are made from a variety of fresh vegetables, seasoned to create a combination of sourness, saltiness, sweetness and chilli heat. These dishes have been Thai favourites for at least a century. There is a shrimp version called saeng waa, and also yam yai and yam thawaai, both of which use many vegetables. One yam that was once very popular, less so now, is yam nuea yaang, made with grilled beef. Thai cooks now often substitute the Chinese sweet sausage called kunchieng or the mild Vietnamese one called muu yaw.
Yam woon sen, made with vermicelli (glass noodles) is especially popular with women. Thai cooks take the Chinese vermicelli and mix them with shrimp, finely chopped pork, onions, celery and bird's eye chillies, and then season the salad to create the proper balance of sourness, saltiness and fiery heat from the chillies.
Another dish based on borrowed ingredients is tao jio lon, made by taking the salty fermented soybean sauce called tao jio khao, a Chinese condiment, and simmering it with coconut cream, minced pork, chillies (phrik chee faa), salt or fish sauce, and palm sugar. It is eaten with a variety of fresh vegetables, particularly khamin khao (raw light turmeric), which has no role whatsoever in Chinese cuisine.
The borrowing of ingredients between Thailand and China is not limited to just those adopted by Thai cooks. The Thai curry called kaeng phet plaa chon kap fak (a spicy coconut cream curry made with snakehead fish and pumpkin squash) includes a lot of coconut cream, like others in the kaeng phet category. Chinese cooks prepare it in their own way, with a seasoning mixture that is only slightly hot and uses only a small amount of coconut cream but plenty of rice flour mixed with water, and the squash. This dish is very popular with Thais, even given the existence of the original, more potently seasoned Thai version.
Then there is kaeng phet pet yaang, a grilled duck curry. The original Thai version of the dish was kaeng khua taphaap nam sai ma-uek (a thick curry made from soft-shell turtle, fuzzy, eggplant-like ma-uek, pineapple and tomato-like makhuea prio). Then Thai chefs borrowed grilled duck from the Chinese repertoire, added hotter seasonings, simmered them with coconut cream and added sour fruits. The dish offers the full spectrum of flavours of the original turtle curry.
Another such curry is kaeng awm plaa duke kap mara Jeen (a catfish curry made with Chinese bitter melon). Catfish and mara Jeen have become so closely associated in this curry that they can't be separated. Anyone who prepares it using a vegetable other than the bitter melon will lose all credibility as a curry cook.
One dish that is so close to disappearing that only cooking grandmothers are likely to know it well is made by taking hua chai po (salted Chinese turnip), cutting it into thin slices and cooking it slowly with coconut cream and shallots. The taste combines saltiness and sweetness.
The list of cooking ingredients and techniques borrowed from China also extends to desserts and sweets. A short list might include hua man thate tom kap khing sai nam taan (sweet potato cooked in sugar syrup with ginger), luuk dueay tom nam taan (figs stewed in syrup), thua khio tom nam taan (mung beans stewed in syrup), tao suan (hulled mung beans cooked in syrup thickened with starch) and khao nio dam (black sticky rice) prepared the same way and popularly known as khao nio piak.
Coconut cream is not popular in Chinese cooking but Chinese cooks top both tao suan and khao nio piak with a mixture of coconut cream cooked with starch and salt. It gives the dish a delectable sweet-salty-nutty taste. If the coconut cream is left out, the dish loses much of its appeal.
Borrowing or exchanging ingredients or techniques across cultural borders does not violate any copyrights or betray any patriotic sensibilities. It shows a respect for the possibilities and achievements of other culinary traditions. Cooking is an art and, as with other arts, it is the interflow of ideas and influences that enriches it.
