Cuisines of Southeast Asia

This page is intended as a quickie survey of Southeast Asia. As time permits separate more detailed pages will be created for each of the regions and its cuisines.

I've includede here considerable detail on ethnicity and religion because that has a profound influence on interpretation of cuisines. In particular Muslims are forbidden pork, Indians / Hindus shun beef as do some Buddhists, and some Buddhists are vegetarian (though most in Southeast Asia are not). Christians will eat almost anything and the Chinese will eat anything.

Maps: Click on any of the small maps to get a larger much more detailed map. All the small maps on this page are distrubuted under the Creative Commons Attribution v2.5. Each of the larger maps they link to are noted as to copyright and licensing.

The ruling military junta changed the name to Myanmar in 1989, but I side with the opposition and call it Burma, as do the governments of the United States, Canada, Australia and the UK. Theravada Buddhism is the predominant religion with Christians making up about 4%, and Muslims, mainly Sunni, between 4% and 20% depending on who's propaganda you favor. Burmese Buddhism is "enhanced" by tending to 37 major and many minor Nats (spirits).

Beef is not much eaten, both for religious reasons and because buffalo are too useful as work animals. Fish, preferably river fish, and shrimp are very popular while pork and chicken are also favored. Lamb is, of course, favored by the Muslim minority but is expensive in a tropical country. Detail.

In the 12th century Cambodia was a major power and the royal city of Angkor Thom was the largest city in the world. Unfortunately much that remained of Cambodian culture was slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge - conservatively one and a half million people killed or starved to death in four years from 1975.

The Khmer Rouge leadership, mostly academic idealists themselves, considered even literacy sufficient grounds for death - a grim warning not to let our own "Politically Correct" academics off campus. Noam Chomsky and many other "idealists" vigorously supported the Khmer Rouge.

Fortunately many people managed to escape the country so its traditions have been partially preserved and can be partially restored. We have a strong Cambodian community here in Southern California. The Cambodian people are 90% Khmer (Austroasian) and Theravada Buddhism is the predominant religion (95%).

Cambodian cuisine is similar to that of its neighbors, Thailand and Vietnam, and most of the same ingredients are used. It is generally simpler than Thai and reflective of times before the Portuguese brought chili peppers to Southeast Asia - black pepper is used instead. The ever present table condiment, Tik Marij, is made of lime juice, salt and black pepper.

Pork, beef, chicken and fish are all popular. Holy Basil is much used and is rather different from the familiar Thai kind. Unfortunately it's very difficult to get in the U.S. because it's so perishable.

Though officially non-sectarian Indonesia requires all citizens to believe in God and belong to one of 6 recognized religions, and has the largest Muslim population of any country. The religious makeup is Muslim (86%), Christian (11%), Hindu (2%) and Buddhist (1%). Hindus are concentrated on the island of Bali and the Buddhists are mostly ethnic Chinese. Much of the country's private wealth is concentrated in the hands of the ethnic Chinese which has caused considerable resentment and sometimes bloodshed.

Indonesian cuisine is known to the outside world mainly through the rijsttafel (rice table) a Dutch invention based on Indonesian celebratory feasts and is not at all typical of normal fare. Real Indonesian cuisines, and there are hundreds of them, tend to be very local and not well recorded. Cooking is not prestigeous there so there has been little attempt to preserve traditional recipes.

Laos is basically a mountanous ridge between Thailand and Vietnam. The Lao people are the main inhabitants, though there are said to be more Lao in northeastern Thailand than in Laos.

Rice is used by the Lao very much differently from how it is used in the rest of Southeast Asia. The main rice used is short grain sticky rice, while in the rest of Southeast asia this rice is used for making sweets and long grain rice is the main rice.

Food is eaten by taking up a lump of sticky rice in the fingers and using it to pick up other food items which will be eaten along with the rice. Sticky rice takes hours of soaking before it is steamed in special baskets, and bags are dated so you can know how long to soak it - the more months from harvest the longer you soak it.

I'm lumping the State of Brunei (that little green spot on the map) in with Malysia until someone can convince me it has a unique cuisine - unlikely since the entirety of East Malaysia was once part of the Sultinate of Brunei.

Malaysia is ethnically and religiously diverse with ethnic Malays (Austronesian) making up 52% of the population and required by the Constitution to be Muslim. Muslims are 60% of the population, Buddhists 19%, Christians 9%, Hindus 6%.

Muslims are subject to Sharia law but the Sharia courts are unusually liberal in Malaysia. A person wishing to leave the Muslim faith must go before a Sharia court and convince the judges s/he really means it, but s/he will not be immediately killed for doing so as is the case in most Islamic lands.

It's hard to generalize about the cuisine of Malaysia because it's as diverse as its people, but thick coconut based curries are more common there than in other parts of Southeast Asia. A unique feature is Nonya cooking. Chinese merchants who settled in Malaysia married Malay women, who continued to cook as they had learned but mixed it with Chinese recipes to please their husbands. Of course they didn't do it quite Chinese way.

The Philippines are the peaks of a submurged mountain range north of Indonesia. It is populated mainly by Austronesian peoples from Taiwan (which is now largely Chinese). Austronesians went on to become also the dominant populationa of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Pacific Islands.

Philippine markets are proliferating in the U.S. making a range of Asian ingredients easily available. In California the entire health care industry runs on Filipinos so markets can be found near many big hospital complexes.

Having an incredibly long coastline, fish is a major item in the Philippine diet and Filipino markets are making a huge range of unfamiliar fish available to Americans. Many are listed on my Varieties of Fish page.

Due to long rule by the Spanish and then the U.S. most Philippinos are Catholic (81%) or Protestant (9%). Muslims (5%) are concentrated in the Sulu island chain and west central Mindanao (green area) where frequent bombings and beheadings keep the area depressed resulting in more bombings and beheadings. The Philippines were briefly ruled by Japan during World War II and became independent 1946.

The main staple in the Philippines is rice, with long grain Jasmine (Milagrosa, Mali) rice preferred. Sticky rice is used for sweets and some breakfast dishes. After fish, chicken and pork are popular but beef is also eaten. Lamb is preferred in the Islamic areas of course, but is expensive in a tropical country. Fish sauces, shrimp pastes and soy sauce, and vinegars are the main seasonings and chilis are less used than in the rest of Southeast Asia.

The island city state of Singapore is embedded in the tip of Malaysia, but has been an international city and trade hub for so long its cuisine is considered distinct from Malaysia itself.

The city was founded in 1819 by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles on behalf of the British East India Company and became a British crown colony until after World War II.

Amusingly, tech journalists from England recently tried to exchange British pound notes for Singapore dollars. The bank's exchange desk didn't recognize them and demanded U.S. dollars or Euros. The sun has definitely set on the British Empire.

With strong Chinese, Indian and Muslim communities, restaurants in particular try not to offend. Pork is little seen and beef is not much used, but fish, chicken and lamb are popular. The cuisine itself is a mix of Chinese, Nonya (mixed Chinese/Malay), Malay, Muslim and European elements.

Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia that never fell to European rule. It is noted for the most sophisticated cuisine in Southeast Asia, and in the U.S. for liberal use of hot chili peppers.

Important seasonings are chilis, cilantro, fish sauce, soy sauce, yellow bean sauce, shrimp paste, galingal, ginger root, kafir lime leaves, lemon grass, soy sauce, oyster sauce, black pepper, cumin and coriander. These are often ground up in various combinations into "curry pasts" for convenient seasoning. Coconut milk is also much used.

Fish sauce is particularly important - without it you simply can't cook Thai, but you really need all the other stuff listed abpve too.

The main staple in the Thailand is rice, with long grain Jasmine (Milagrosa, Mali) rice highly preferred. Sticky rice is used for sweets in most of Thailand but is the main rice in the Northeast which is heavily influenced by the Lao population.

Pork is the most popular meat with beef (actually water buffalo) also popular. Fish, both ocean and river, shrimp and chicken are equally popular to meat. Lard is the traditional cooking oil in Thailand but has been supplanted by vegetable oils in the cities and abroad.

Most of Thailand is Theravada Buddhist but in the south, as you near the border with Malaysia, the population becomes Muslim so that area is subject to the usual frequent bombings and sectarian murder. Islamic regions.

Vietnamese place names are more than familiar to those of us who were adults during the Vietnam War but are probably just movie stuff to the younger folks. Today Vietnam is noted as a major exporter of fruit and especially seafood products to North America. Considerable effort is being made there to assure products meet USDA standards.

Vietnamese cuisine is not as familiar to Americans as Thai. There are plenty of Vietnamese restaurants here in Southern California but most are still clustered around Alhambra, Westminster and other major Asian communities.

The beef soup Pho is becoming quite famous in North America though - even though its origin, origin of its name and ingredients are hotly disputed. Vietnamese cuisine often blends native elements similar to Thai with Chinese and French influences.

Vietnam is particularly noted for excellent "street food", dishes quickly made up and suitable for production and sale by street vendors.

The population is predominantly Mahayana Buddhism (86%) with influences from Taoism and Confucianism and Catholic (7%). There is also a contingent of Godless Communists, but doctrinare Communism seems to be having a hard time keeping up with economic prosperity. There is now a thriving tourist industry catering to Americans who fought in the Vietnam war.