The next country in our around the world trip is Thailand, home of a cuisine that was largely unknown in the West, then became ubiquitous over the course of about fifteen minutes. That’s not a bad thing and not a coincidence - in order to boost the profile of Thailand the Thai government in 2002 initiated the Global Thai programme, aiming to boost the number of Thai restaurants abroad. This included provision of prefabricated restaurant plans and generous loans for food-related businesses abroad.

Broadly recent Thai history seems to be a cycle of democracy, military coup d’état, junta and restoration, despite that this policy was very successful and seems to have stuck through different modes of government, which is actually quite remarkable.

Naturally Thailand has a long and storied history outside of this recent instability, with the current Thai people likely originating from Guangxi in China, migrating out from the 8th century, and the Kingdom of Siam maintaining its independence in the imperial era (at the cost of outlying territory) as a buffer state between Britain and France. But, frankly, even if far less important than any of that, the Global Thai thing is just perfect for an introduction for a food blog. What a cool nugget of history.