Red, Yellow, and Green Curry, and How Thai Restaurants Took Over the World

One note then locations. This is a more light-hearted video than we usually do- a quick story about overseas Thai food and then background features on red, yellow, and green curry. The reason this one's a bit "easier" and the next one or two may be as well as we're starting to adjust to more traveling/filming, and I had to plan a video I could do while losing a few days in the northern Thai jungles working on another one. Then this week we're off to Phuket, with our first trip abroad for filming coming up next month. It might be a few weeks before the new batch of videos we've been working on will be ready for posting, but take my word for it, there's some amazing stuff coming up and I cannot wait to share it with you. In the mean time, please forgive us a couple of light ones while I work my hardest on some epic stuff. EDIT- Also, just noticed chapters aren't working. This is quite annoying, but after speaking with YouTube service it might take up to 48 hours to resolve. Apologies. I know it's minor but still- drives me crazy. Here are this week's locations: 1- The Khao San Road spot (actually a pretty good place, definitely don't want it feel like we're down on them- would recommend if you're in the area and craving a good version of the more global stuff): maps.app.goo.gl/g6YGLMEcecPeqLMTA 2- Mae On's Khao Gaeng: maps.app.goo.gl/EU4CHFqCQFzN2Zsy8 3- Charmgang: maps.app.goo.gl/CFLMbEhecpcmJhHo6 4- Jek Pui: maps.app.goo.gl/GrnXDVTm9oynx8r59 5- Kiew Kai Ka: maps.app.goo.gl/5iCNHfSRx1HiWckG7 Cheers and have a good week

This is the first time I've ever watched a non-Thai explaining the conceptualized difference between "Tom" and "Gaeng" and I'm pleasantly surprised how well you did it.

stoplight curries is now my new favorite word

I have nothing to add to this conversation, other than to say that the depth of your research, the objectivity of your presentation, your acknowledgment of popular misconception and exploration of the reasoning behind it, your ability to translate highly culturally-specific details into universally understandable concepts, and to combine your personal lived experience with objective fact...this is hands-down the best series about food history/culture not just on YouTube, but in any media including legacy TV and film. Better than Bourdain and Zimmern, better than David Gelb, better even than my ride-or-die Max Miller. I know I'm just glazing at this point, but this is truly how much I admire your work. Guess it's time for me to finally join the Patreon!

As a Thai who was a Historian and now working as a chef in European country I just found your channel and very impressed. Subscribe!

This is absolutely fascinating. I am a Thai American and my aunt ran a restaurant in Evanston (Chicago area) in the 90s, before the big government press. The green curry I grew up with much more resembles what you showed in the curry shop than what you showed as being 'American', probably because she was before the government instructions. It only came with one option, fish. The vegetable was eggplant and it was very thin and it went over rice noodles. She didn't have a red or yellow curry, although she had one she called "chicken curry" (substituting proteins wasn't an option) with sweet potato that was basically a masaman. And that was it. It's so interesting. I know part of her choices were based on the limited imports of ingredients. Another friend of the family who I called 'Uncle' did all of the importing of Thai ingredients to the Chicago area, he had a grocery store on Argyle street near the Red Line stop, and he was the only source for whatever it was people needed. So there was a certain bottleneck of options. If it wasn't pre-made by Mae Ploy, it was difficult to track down individual flavour components to make it correctly oneself, so there were only certain things she could make. I remember the grapow (ground chicken only) being a big hit with non-Thai people, as well as the larb (which was much stickier, sweeter, clumpier, and more finely ground, with far more sugar and peanut, than a lot of other restaurants I've seen in America since then.) And yes, you are completely correct, it was fascinating to watch Thai food go from "What? You're from... Taiwan....?" to a whole thing that everyone knows about even in non-urban areas. To be exact my mother's side is Chinese via Thailand and my fathers is Iranian, so half of my family food is still under '... what?'

Honestly, this relatively new channel has almost instantly risen to the top of the food documentary channels online. Keep up the great work.

I lived in Thailand for a total of 25 years, Gaeng Phed Ped Yang has always been my favourite gaeng!

Honestly, as a Thai American i haven't been able to learn that much about my father's country. But Ive been able to learn so much about Thailand's food and history through this channel. So thank you so much!

The speech that you did around 22 minutes is actually so good and bittersweet, to be realizing just one small dish you eat everyday impact people around the globe, especially the immigrants that are so far away, it's basically what reminded them of "home", and just thinking about how they'd feel eating a simple dish from their own home is just so sweet. You always do amazing works, keep going OTR!

Been to Thailand and LOVED It all! People, jungles, beached, cities, history and FOOD!! 😊😊😊

Just to add, the Thai craze in Australia started around a decade earlier than in the USA or Europe. Thai had become a standard restaurant type in Sydney by the mid-90s at the latest.

We(Thais) also have Gaeng Som which direct to orange curry, but Som for this curry is actually mean sour.

I gotta hand it to you all, your choice of imagery, script writing, pacing of the video, all incredible and add to the story being told. Great stuff.

In late 1973 my wife and I opened Australia's first Thai restaurant in Melbourne. We were inspired to do so from sellout Thai functions put on by the 100 or so Thai Students living in Melbourne at that time, It was immediately successful, but it presented a supply function getting the ingredients. We did a deal with the local Thai International manager and we would import large plastic bins of the 3 curry pastes every Monday, Since then as more commercial products have become available we have noticed the change in quality as you say. Now Australia is saturated with both good and bad restaurants, it all seems a lot sweeter. We are in Bangkok presently and I agree with you, the simplest curries seem to be found in the small places, recently we ate in 2 places in Cha am, in one the curries were 80bht per bowl, the other 120. Both were excellent Over the next few weeks we will be trying more.

The other Thai food category that is also interresting is Yum (ยำ). There are so many Thai dishes in this category which didn't have the word Yum in the names such as Somtum, Larb, Pla (พล่า) but they are kinds of Yum if you sorce them by how they are cooked.

Absolutely Amazing...I have been to Thailand 3 times and tested all 3 curries ...this video is making me to Book flight tickets......to Thailand

As a Thai, I still gain knowledge watching this video. Thanks for representing our culture and food so perfectly.

Great video, thank you! I can attest that in Moscow, Russia for example, local good-quality Thai restaurants put a lot of full cream coconut milk in Thai dishes, because this is what local customers like. I was very surprised first time I visited Thailand, when I had a TomYum soup without any coconut milk at all.

One of the standouts for me when I was in Thailand was that Thai food was so much more, and therefore also far more interesting, than I had thought based on North American Thai restaurants.