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silently between the larger vessels anchored along the docks. Passing beneath the bridge, they pulled up alongside a rickety pier and got to work unloading their contraband within minutes the wharf was groaning from the weight of large wooden crates. The smugglers worked quickly and had almost completed the task when pandemonium erupted. A shrill whistle blast pierced the night that A small army of police constables poured onto the docks,

surrounding the smugglers. Those who tried to run at the end of a cudgel, a stack of crates toppled, smashing against the dock and spilling their contents over the wooden planks. One of the constables knelt, reaching down to reverently touch the snow white contraband. The crates were not full of drugs or weapons or stolen jewelry. They contained something even more valuable. This was pont de laisson, a type of needle point lace crafted by carmelite nuns from southern France.

Dubbed the Queen of Lace for its beauty, it was among the most desired fabrics in the world. It wasn't the material involved that made the lace so valuable, but the artistry, craftsmanship, and labor that went into every hand stitched piece. A single square centimeter took seven hours to create and involved the labor of eighteen craftswomen. The fact that it was both beautiful and difficult to create made it incredibly popular among European aristocracy, who had been adorning

themselves a needle point for years. They used lace in all their clothing too, but especially their sleeves and oversized collars. The incredible popularity of lace eventually caught the attention of the French government. The Finance minister was startled by the exorbitant sums their nobles were spending on foreign lace, and

became determined to keep that money within the country. He started by heavily investing in the French lace making school, then banning foreign lace so that nobles would be forced to use homegrown stuff. At the same time, he made it illegal to transport French lace out of the country so that no one else could copy their designs. As expected, the ban led to a massive boon in the French lace industry, but it also created incentives for criminals to

enter the market. An arms race quickly developed between the police and lace smugglers, who came with increasingly clever schemes to get their textiles across the border. They smuggled lace inside empty coffins and hollowed out loaves of bread. They even wrapped it around large dogs before dressing the animals in fake hides. The authorities responded with a series of high profile busts. In one instance, a hangman burned hundreds of thousands of crowns worth of foreign lace, treating the

textile itself as a criminal who deserved to die. The situation continued until seventeen eighty nine, when the French Revolution virtually wiped out the nobility. The demand for high quality lace cratered, putting hundreds of thousands of craftswomen out of work. Needle point lace did see a brief resurgence of popularity during the Napoleonic era, but met its true end soon

after during the Industrial Revolution. You see, the textile machines that were invented in the mid nineteenth century could easily replicate the patterns that had taken human hands countless hours to create. This made the lace far less expensive to produce, but also less unique and desirable. With the human artistry removed, lace became just like any other fabric, and it soon fell out of fashion. Wealthy people turned their attention to

other luxurious fabrics like silk or velvet. Soon enough, hardly anyone would remember a time when needle point lace was one of the most sought after and most forbidden commodities in the world, a time when French fashion police scoured their harbors for illicit fabrics and smugglers risk their necks to dress the necks of the elite. You've seen it in every Thai restaurant from Bangkok to Berlin. Tender rice noodles, fresh tamarind, juicy shrimp, squeeze of lime, and just a

hint of peanuts for some nutty crunch mention. Thai food anywhere in the world, and most people's thoughts jumped to one iconic dish, pad Thaie, a combination of salty, sweet, acid, and spice. Seemed to represent the complexity of Thaie cuisine all in one single dish. But pad Thai, which means Thai stirfry, didn't have the same journey as other national dishes. It didn't come from a grandmother's kitchen or a popular roadside stand. Instead, pad Thai was cooked up by a

dictator obsessed with the flavor of Thai's identity. In the late nineteen thirties, Thailand was getting nervous. It was still an independent kingdom called Siam, but it seemed like all of its neighbors were being colonized. Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Burma were ruled by the French and the English, and now word was coming down the line that Japan had

invaded China and was looking further self. The Prime Minister of Thailand at the time was and I have to ask your forgiveness in advance for trying to pronounce this man's name, a guy named Kleiak Fibun Songkrem, who most westerners just called Fibun. Now Fibun had overthrown the monarchy and was using the military to rule Siam. He believed that colonists saw Siam as a backwards, primitive place in

need of their brand of civilizing. To keep his country free, he thought he needed to do what leaders like Benito Mussolini had done. He needed to create a strong national identity, from music and art to close and even food. From nineteen thirty nine to nineteen forty two, Phibun issued twelve cultural mandates to realize this vision. He changed the name

of the country from Siam to Thailand. He demanded specific types of traditional dress, and he targeted ethnic minorities, including banning the Chinese language and driving Chinese food vendors off the street. Now amidst this campaign for identity, Fibun decided the country needed a national dish, one that would showcase the depth and complexity of Thai flavors, but would also be a healthy and hearty one with lots of protein and vegetables. So he unveiled his new national program called

Noodle Is Your Lunch. The Public Welfare Department gave out noodle carts, ingredients and a new recipe. The national dish of modern Thailand pad Thai. And yet, even as Fibun claimed this dish encapsulated all of Thai cuisine, many Thai people had never tasted did anything like it. Thai food is highly dictated by locality, using the fresh ingredients that are locally grown, raised, or fished. There it was a country that ate rice rather than noodles, So people wondered

where pad thai had come from. Was it a regional dish, something ancient with a long history, And the truth was Fibun was just a guy who liked noodles. The meal which became pad thai was based on a recipe from his housekeeper, who made it often. In truth, it may have even come from a Chinese recipe. Noodles were much more popular in China than in Thailand, but through his

cultural programs, pad Thai became ubiquitous across the country. His forced national identity still wasn't enough to stave off invasion. In nineteen forty one, under thread of Japanese attack, Fibun agreed to let Japanese soldiers move freely throughout Thailand, and as the war ended, the Thai people, sick of his harsh rules, ousted him from office, and yet even with the Thai people rejecting Fibun's other mandates, pad Thai somehow serve.

In fact, pad Thai became the driving force behind a second cultural identity movement, this time in two thousand and one. That year, the Thai government launched a program called Thai Kitchen to the World. They wanted to create a concept of Thai cultural identity in other countries, to attract tourists to Thailand and create a cultural calling card. Part of this program was to train chefs and grant loans to

people who opened Thai restaurants in other countries. The governments even came up with three cookie cutter restaurant concepts, from cheap eats to fine dining, that restaurant owners could easily copy, which is why some Thai restaurants have the same menu from Hong Kong to Houston. But many Thai entrepreneurs also struck out on their own, creating restaurants that would cater to local populations, and many of them found that worldwide people loved the sweet, sour, spicy flavors of pad Thai.

Even in Thailand, the dish has become a popular lunchtime staple. Still, if you do venture to Thailand or your local Thai restaurant, don't be afraid to try something else on the menu. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership

with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.