Real Thai Cooking

I like to say I read cookbooks for the stories, but this one is a real history textbook, relating how Thai cuisine has evolved and absorbed neighboring and not so neighboring influences (I didn't know noodles were a relatively recent addition and pad thai was the result of a national contest to come up with a distinctly Thai noodle dish, which apparently worked out quite well), plus a deep dive into the distinct regional cuisines (and of course the bragging rights disputes about who invented what), trends like the famous Thai street food and the schizophrenic government attitude toward it, and historical figures like Maria Guyoma de Pinha whose soap opera life was dramatized in TV series not least because she's credited with inventing Thai classic desserts. Of course, this is a cookbook, and the dishes look great along with the mouth-watering descriptions.