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Home » Reader question » Why do Thais have an obsession with food?
Why do Thais have an obsession with food?
Dear readers,
Here on Thailandblog something has also been written about the obsession with food in Thai. Of course we all love good food, so do I, but you can also overdo it. My girlfriend eats all day long. In the evening she wonders aloud what she will eat tomorrow. When she wakes up she is already talking about food. She is fortunately not fat, but maybe that will come.
The latest is that she will also watch videos of Thai people eating on her iPad. The sound is quite loud so I hear someone smack loudly in the background. Really disgusting. I have sent such a video and hope that the editors can post it. According to her, those videos are extremely popular in Thailand.
I'm sorry, but I can't imagine that we in the Netherlands will sit and watch eating people, can I? What is it with Thai and food? Why are they so obsessed with it?
Can someone explain this to me?
Regards,
Harry
Food is a basic need for which a large part of the income goes, especially for the lower incomes.
You can see it as an obsession, but also a form of respect for what delicious things can be made.
And about your girlfriend, it is expected that she will gain some weight if she has not yet reached the age of 40.
What the heart is full of, the mouth overflows.
But is the heart full of “food”?
Isn't it rather a neutral subject, such as the weather in the Netherlands?
Everyone can join in the conversation, you don't bump your head, you can differ in opinion without being confronted with each other.
My neighbors once told me that they found it difficult to talk to me. How so? “You don't talk about ordinary things.” What are they then, ordinary things? The reader guessed it. "You don't talk about the food."
At the time I was reminded of German Marxist-Leninists who once advertised themselves with the slogan “Wir reden nicht vom Wetter.” Nothing good has come of their Lebensernst afterwards…
Yes, I recognize that too, and what bothers me most is that most of them eat and talk at the same time, luckily I was able to unlearn that to my wife, but another thing is that everything should always be spicy, my wife likes a lot of Western food tasty, but everything goes with ground chili, which in my opinion kills a lot of authentic taste.
What's wrong with interest in food?
If someone makes a noise while eating, it's just a sign that it tastes good.
The Chinese also find food very important and if they want to know something, the very first thing they ask is: what did you eat? That was already in the time when there was a lot of poverty among the Chinese people.
The Thai people originated in South China… so there is certainly cohesion.
I myself learned (French language): I eat to live ~ I don't live to eat. I don't normally talk about food because I don't think it's important (as long as food is available). The older generation has experienced the hunger winter and then things are slightly different.
(Sufficient) food is now almost self-evident for the average European, but I expect that a large part of the Thai people do not have it that wide and often find it difficult to make ends meet with the money that is available. Then (good and tasty) food becomes very important. And then it gets talked about more often.
Not only the food, but also drinking alcohol is an obsession with many Thai people, who apparently have never heard of borders.
If you don't eat (fri) then you are not sanoek, and if you try to say that everything has its limits, you have to be careful that you don't get labeled as "kiniau" (stingy).
Unlike most farangs, who meet somewhere for a beer and a snack, this immediately becomes a drinking and eating feast for many Thais.
Food is so important to the Thai people that they start their first small talk with the words “Gin khau lew reuang” (have you eaten yet) in their language.
When my wife's family comes on the phone, the second sentence is already "Wanni gin arai" (what are you eating today?)555
I eat and drink along nicely, and if it gets too colorful for me, Sawadee tight and cut job.555
Also love most Thai food , love it and enjoy it most of the time though ::
If we sit at the table with several Thai people, I tend to pick up my plate and go inside to continue eating on my own. I have little need to see what some people had as a previous meal because you almost look in the stomach. We had a farm at home and we were taught to eat neatly without tasting, the average animals on the farm at we ate better than the average Thai. With all those sounds, my hunger goes away, damn, what an unsavory sound while eating...
Basic needs; Food – a roof – sex. That's what all primary people start with, of course. That's how we are together.
A Thai eats anywhere, anytime, all day long. We divide it neatly. Three meals and possibly an afternoon snack. Not her. They ALWAYS eat. Enter a store..they are always eating. Sit, stand, lie, hang. You have to conform to it.
Not only Thai hear enjoy and talk about food.
Take a look at the NL social media, how much is written and photographed about food.
And I also hear, I can also enjoy when I see a website or FB group with good food and recipes.
Then I also think: I will also taste or buy that this week.
In the Netherlands we talk and ask a little more about the weather, in Thailand a little more about food. Masr do the Dutch have an obsession with the weather? Thai with food? No. I sometimes see a FB posing masr day in and day out, hour in hour out? No. Yes, individuals, but certainly not population-wide.
You clearly come from a wealthy state.
Ever been hungry? I don't mean "pull".
And not even a month. But generations of scarcity.
Something like that goes into your genes.
Take it easy, I'd say.
Dear VRONY, In present-day Thailand, with exceptions, no one has suffered from real hunger for a very long time.
Your attempt to dramatize the often exaggerated appetite of many Thais with an often generations short of food, therefore misses the mark.
According to your theory, all descendants of the hunger winter of 1944 would be so loaded in their genes that 75 years later they still have to eat every hour of the day.
The scarcity you describe has not been available in Thailand for a very long time, and indicates that you should look around a bit more carefully the next holiday.