Thai Food
The main food in Thailand is rice. Everyone has eaten it since they were born. But we can't really eat rice alone so we have to have something to go with it. There are many dishes of food to go with rice. Most of them are hot and spicy and that is what Thai food is famous for.
Thai people are used to eating rice with their meal. Most Thai people can't have sandwiches for their meal. They call sandwiches a snack. Also, most Thai people do not sit down to eat a proper meal because they usually eat when they are hungry, especially kids and teenagers. If you know some Thai person, you might hear them say "gin khao yung" every time you meet them. It means "have you eaten yet?" or more precise "have you eaten rice yet?". If you come to Thailand and stay with a Thai family then be careful you don't put on too much weight! All of the visitors that have come to stay at our school always go home weighing more!
We not only pay attention to how a dish tastes: we are also concerned about how it looks, how it smells, and how it fits in with the rest of the meal. We think of all parts of the meal as a whole - sum rap Thai (the way Thais eat), is the term we use for the unique components that make up a characteristically Thai meal."
Thai cooking places emphasis on lightly prepared dishes with strong aromatic components and a spicy edge. It is known for its complex interplay of at least three and up to four or five fundamental taste senses in each dish or the overall meal: sour, sweet, salty, bitter and spicy. Australian chef David Thompson, a prolific chef and expert on Thai food, observed that unlike many other cuisines:[2]
"Thai food ain't about simplicity. It's about the juggling of disparate elements to create a harmonious finish. Like a complex musical chord it's got to have a smooth surface but it doesn't matter what's happening underneath. Simplicity isn't the dictum here, at all. Some westerners think it's a jumble of flavours, but to a Thai that's important, it's the complexity they delight in.