Thai Haut-Cuisine

Thai food, I have come to realize, is an amazingly delicious, developed, and diverse art form (a seasoned one!).  It is the product of a great and tweaking focus on tradition - some might say "obsession," much like French cuisine (and Ecuadorean while I'm at it!).  But the Thai ability to share the richness of its cuisine with the world is obviously limited (American Thai restaurants are generally a pale and watered down sampling of the real thing).  I love this food as much as I love French and Ecua food (which is a lot), and the emphasis these cultures have placed on good food strikes me as very beautiful - aesthetic.  Cooking & eating - the nutritious nourishment of the body is such a basic, defining dimension of life, that it seems wholly justified to focus on it as one would on life itself.  As they say here: "same, same."  I've already mentioned the related preoccupation with food among Thai artists...   If we have to cook and eat to stay alive, why would we degrade and rush this process, as in fast food?  Much better to honor and celebrate it to the fullest and best of our imaginations and abilities...  It should take a lifetime.