In this Book
University of California Press
- Flavors of Empire: Food and the Making of Thai America
- Book
- 2017
- Published by: University of California Press
- Series: American Crossroads
summary
With a uniquely balanced combination of salty, sweet, sour, and spicy flavors, Thai food burst onto Los Angeles's culinary scene in the 1980s. Flavors of Empire examines the rise of Thai food and the way it shaped the racial and ethnic contours of Thai American identity and community. Full of vivid oral histories and new material from the archives, this book explores the factors that made foodways central to the Thai American experience. Starting with American Cold War intervention in Thailand, Mark Padoongpatt traces how informal empire allowed U.S. citizens to discover Thai cuisine abroad and introduce it inside the United States. When Thais arrived in Los Angeles, they reinvented and repackaged Thai food in various ways to meet the rising popularity of the cuisine in urban and suburban spaces. Padoongpatt opens up the history, politics, and tastes of Thai food for the first time, all while demonstrating how race emerges in seemingly mundane and unexpected places.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- List of Illustrations
- pp. ix-x
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xi-xviii
- Conclusion: Beyond Cooking and Eating
- pp. 174-190
Additional Information
ISBN
9780520966925
Related ISBN(s)
9780520293731
MARC Record
OCLC
983786801
Pages
268
Launched on MUSE
2017-10-20
Language
English
Open Access
No