Welcome to Southern Thailand’s Phetchaburi, also known as the ‘City of Three Tastes’ where you can fulfil your taste buds with a food palate of salty, sweet and sour.
Toddy palm curry, otherwise known as Gaeng Kua Hua Tan, is a well-known dish that reflects Phetchaburi’s cultural roots. Cooked on a charcoal stove, the dish includes thin slices of soft toddy palm flesh, curry pastes, coconut milk, grilled fish or meat, seasoned fish sauce and palm sugar. The dish helped earn the province recognition by UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) for its food.
Phetchaburi is the fifth province in Thailand to have earned the UCCN title in the field of Gastronomy, after Bangkok (2019), Sukhothai (2019), Chiang Mai (2017) and Phuket (2015) which were honoured for their design, gastronomy, as well as crafts and folk arts.
The Phetchaburi province has an abundance of biodiversity that provides a rich food source. Phetchaburi’s provincial administration is working on a five-year roadmap where gastronomy takes centre stage in generating and distributing income for local residents.
Phetchaburi Governor, Natavudh Petchpromsorn, said that by 2027, the average income of the local population is expected to increase by 50% as a result of targeted tourism expansion and new gastronomic creations by local artisan producers.
The five-year roadmap will hopefully drive the province towards a more sustainable future.
Eunice Cruz is a Filipino-Australian currently in her third year of Journalism and International Studies (China Major) at the University of Technology Sydney and working at SkyNews. She is always eager to learn more about other Asian cultures and is particularly interested in Korean language and culture. She has a strong passion for food, beauty and make-up. She also has a keen interest in investigative journalism and is events director of UTS Journalism Society.
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