Molz introduces culinary tourism and the authenticity of American based Thai restaurants. By observing ten different Thai restaurants [mostly in Dallas] in the USA she questions whether or not people actually want the Thai ‘experience’ or if they actually want ‘Thai Food’
A few years ago I read the book “The Beach” by Alex Garland (later to come is a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio). The Beach is about a beach in Thailand that isn’t for tourists or to be found by anyone except a selected few. One of the points mentioned in the book is that Americans travel (not just to Thailand) wanting their ‘touristic’ experience to be exactly as it is at home, watching television and maybe getting a tan along the way. This relates to how American’s (Westerners) palates depict what they want to eat, sure they want to try the Thai food, but it has to be appealing to them in a familiar way. Such as not having the fried rice kai doo(fried egg) but still having the sense of eating Thai food.
Molz speaks often of how actual Thai cuisine is spicier than what you would find in an American Thai Restaurant. When the American tourist leaves their Western World and ventures to Thailand they if having tried Thai food before arriving will be quite shocked to find that there are in fact parts of Chicken and Fish used that would normally never be eaten by most Americans and mentioned was a degree of spiciness in a Bangkok restaurant: “*coward, **careful. ***adventurous, ****Native Thai” ‘implying the hotter the food, the more authentic.’
I do not mean to say that American’s have no desire to try to bend a little and have an actually an ‘authentic’ Thai meal, just that there is a barrier between what they’re used to as opposed to what is actually out there for them to try.
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