[nont]

That's because 98% of Thai restaurants in Thailand are not artisanal like Japanese or Italian. Most Thai restaurants there are family style, mass-produced ones. There is no even a formal recipe for a Thai dish. The most popular ones among people are more like taverns than classy restaurants, which are common elsewhere in the world.

The upper class citizens would find Western or Japanese food palatable so the market for really well made Thai food is limited. Because Nahm is owned by a westerner, who really dedicates himself perfecting the traditional Thai recipes (rumors say he went to study the old Thai recipes transcripted on leaf scrolls) is phenomenal. Only the elites of the society would be able to afford to eat there. It was possible for a guy of that profile, but would be really hard for a lay Thai person to have a business like that. To most Thai people, catering to students and the teenagers have proven far more profitable.

[PakG1]

These are all good points. But it's still astonishing to me that she could not find someone INSIDE of Thailand who knew or studied the old Thai recipes. I would have figured there would be SOMEONE. Nobody could recommend anybody to her who would have been able to help her. Mind you, I have no idea how big her social and professional network was at the time, only that she went around asking Thai chefs and found nobody.

[nont]

It's really nobody. That's the sad part. Also, like most Asian cultures, some recipes are kept secret and only passed down in the family, if ever at all. Knowledge like this is a competitive advantage, sometimes even in the same family.

[zarzavat]

I'm a big fan of David Thompson, but one difference between western food and Thai (and Southeast Asian) food is that western food is more technique based whereas Thai food is more skill based.

A traditional se asian kitchen is a wok and a rice cooker. Most thai dishes use a small number of techniques (curry pastes, deep frying, etc), but there is much skill in what ingredients the cook uses and what proportions. Change a few variables and you have yourself a whole new dish.

Western cooking delights in dishes that are technically unique, for example the dish ravioli refers not to any particular ingredient but to a technique. In this case, recipes are supremely important for preserving dishes.

For Thai food it is hard to reduce the skill and judgement of a cook down to a recipe.

[2muchcoffeeman]

I grew up in SEA and I have dishes that were only shown to me. Not that we still care about secrets or even have any. But that’s what was done so that’s how I learned it. My attempts at writing these down all failed. Never quite right.

[DiggyJohnson]

I wonder if telling the story of the recipe, both it’s context, your account of learning it be it as it may, and a description of the experience of preparing the dish itself may be more efficient than writing the recipe down as a series of facts? What do you think?

Really fascinating point that I’ll admit I think is very valuable beyond just the realm of cooking.

[2muchcoffeeman]

I wouldn’t say so. I learned these by watching it get made and helping countless times. There’s nothing hard about them. They could be recipes if a more skilled cook was involved.