Pad Thai was a prime minister's patriotic inventionInventing Pad Thai

Pad Thai is treated as Thailand's national dish, but its technique and noodles came from China, and it was pushed on the public by a mid-century military prime minister building a national identity.

Pad Thai turns up on the menu of Thai restaurants almost everywhere, sweet-sour-salty and easy for anyone to like. Its origin story is less Thai than it looks.

The wok and the noodles came from China

It is a stir-fry, and its main ingredient is noodles — both Chinese. The first stir-fried noodles with meat and vegetables served in Thailand were probably made by people who had come from Guangdong.

The prime minister who took office in 1938, Plaek Phibunsongkhram, began by renaming the country from Siam to Thailand, meaning 'land of the free'. He wanted a 'Thai Great Tradition' to bind the country together culturally and politically.

Why this particular noodle

A national dish had to use things Thai farmers could grow and households could keep: eggs, bean sprouts, peanuts. It hit all four flavours Thai cooking prizes — salty, sour, sweet and spicy. The sprouts and peanuts crunch, the noodles are soft, the shrimp chewy.

In the 1940s Thailand had major floods and outbreaks of disease. Served steaming hot, pad Thai looked relatively safe. The government handed out a simple recipe and encouraged vendors to set up wheeled carts with new, easily cleaned tools, cooking each order to order.

It caught on in Bangkok as a convenient lunch, then spread to the countryside. Later, as part of an international push, the government backed Thai restaurants abroad, and by 2007 there were nearly 12,000 worldwide.

At home, though, proper restaurants still rarely serve it — it is a street food, best made by vendors who cook nothing else all day. Exactly what Phibun had in mind.