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Book Cover
E-book
Author Padoongpatt, Mark, author

Title Flavors of empire : food and the making of Thai America / Mark Padoongpatt
Published Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2017]
©2017

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Description 1 online resource (xv, 249 pages)
Series American crossroads ; 45
American crossroads ; 45.
Contents "One night in Bangkok" : food and the everyday life of empire -- "Chasing the yum" : food procurement and early Thai Los Angeles -- Too hot to handle? restaurants and Thai American identity -- "More than a place of worship" : food festivals and Thai American suburban culture -- Thailand's "77th province" : culinary tourism in Thai Town
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, 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"--Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes In English
Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on October 06, 2017)
Subject Thais -- California -- Los Angeles -- Social conditions
Cooking, Thai.
Thais -- California -- Los Angeles -- Social life and customs
COOKING -- General.
HISTORY -- United States -- State & Local -- General.
Cooking, Thai
Thais -- Social conditions
Thais -- Social life and customs
California -- Los Angeles
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2017019088
ISBN 9780520966925
0520966929