Pad Thai is often thought of as the quintessential Thai comfort food, but the wok-fried noodle dish isn’t even 100 years old.
In 1938, six years after a coup d'état took away ruling power from the Siamese monarchy, Field Marshal-turned-Prime Minister Plaek Pibulsongkram passed cultural mandates to promote nationalism and Thai cultural identity. Oddly enough, one of the cultural imperatives was to eat pad Thai, an invented (or at least otherwise obscure) dish incorporating fried Chinese noodles but with Thai seasonings.
