In 2001, I was asked to edit and write the introduction to a collection of papers presented at a regional seminar in Bangkok in 2000, which I was also engaged in, on the topic of Feeding Asian Cities. The full text can in English can be downloaded here: http://www.cityfarmer.org/FeedingAsianCities.pdf. La version française est disponible ici: ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/007/y3399f/y3399f00.pdf.
This book provides an overview and analysis of the habit of “public eating” in Thai society with specific attention paid to the case study of Bangkok where the phenomenon has been particularly widespread for several decades. Using the well-established ethnographic approach of “thick description”, this contribution to the study of Thai and Southeast Asian foodways concentrates on the nexus between eating habits, the social construction of gender and patterns of urban development in one of the world’s mega-cities. By providing a detailed snapshot of the rapid growth period of the early to mid-1990s in central Bangkok and concluding with insights as to the impacts of the economic crisis that wreaked havoc in the latter part of the decade, I illustrate the recursive social, economic and cultural impacts of the “foodscape” on urban space.