Talk:Larb

Which spices?

wrt the variant "which does not use lime or fish sauce, but rather other local condiments," it would be great to specify those local condiments. I've had larb only a few times, but at least one of these I'm pretty sure there was no fish sauce, only mouth-burning (but oh-so-delicious) chili, lime, and ... perhaps vinegar? It was so delicious, my stomach rumbles just to think of it.

timbo 05:45, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

The spice mix refers to Northern Thai lap, which is virtually unavailable outside of (northern) Thailand. If the larb you have eaten contained vinegar in addition to lime juice, and omitted the fish sauce, I would complain to the restaurant. - Takeaway (talk) 17:49, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Spices used as almost always modified for the local consumer base. Somebody that has only had the meal a few times is probably away from a large SE Asian population base. You need to take the best (in your opinion) that you can get at the time. - Thomas Chongruk (talk) 17:23, 1 Dec 2012 (UTC)

Origin of Larb

Dear Wikicentral, we have had this discussion before with other Laos/Isan dishes and apparently you want to have this discussion again. I understand that you, as a citizen of Laos, are proud of Larb, regarded being the national dish of Laos. But how can a country have a national dish? Does a country eat? No. It is the people that eat, not a country. So larb is actually the dish of the Laotian people of which there are around 20 million people living inside Thailand and around 7 million people inside Laos. I really wonder how you can still insist on having larb being a complete Laotian (country) invention? If you have read your own reference carefully, you will see that it only mentions what I have already provided in the reference which was removed by you. I will quote the section from your own reference for you: "but the dish is a Laotian creation, existing there before the arbitrary application of colonial boundaries". In this reference "Laotian creation" means "a creation of the Lao people", not Laos as a country. I will therefore change your edits again. Please discuss the issue here before reverting it again. - Takeaway (talk) 00:35, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I removed the misguiding cookbook reference as it is an oversimplification of the whole matter. It moreover calls the dish "Thai minced chicken salad" while stating that it comes from Laos. The recipe is also completely inauthentic using peanuts, roasted jasmine rice instead of roasted sticky rice, and using lemon grass but omitting ground dried chillies (phrik pon). - Takeaway (talk) 01:25, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I've taken out Takeaway's POV because Larb existed in Laos long before Isan came into existence. Published references state that Larb originated in Laos, which makes sense because Isan was split off from Laos. Anything that was created in Laos prior to the existence of an "Isan" region is rightfully described as having originated in Laos. Larb originated in Laos, but may be referred to as both a Laotian salad as well as an Isan salad. However, it is impossible to change the origins of larb, but you may associate the dish with both Laos and Isan. It is important to have published references in this article and therefore Takeaway should not have deleted those published references. Wikicentral (talk) 22:19, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I tried to curb Wikicentrals nationalism with my edits, stating that it is a creation of Lao people, not the creation of a country. Unfortunately, nationalistic feelings tend to overrule any reasoning. - Takeaway (talk) 21:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Every dish has a place of origin, which is why you should not omit this information from any dish's history. You have to separate food history from your own nationalistic views. For example, satay originated in Indonesia and it's also a creation of the Indonesian people. Just like satay, larb has a place of origin, which is Laos, but it is also a creation of the ethnic group known as Lao who exist in both Laos and Thailand (Lanna/Isan). Therefore mentioning the Lao ethnic group is not nationalistic, but is relevant to larb's history regardless of nationalism. Your attempts at removing the Lao ethnic group's association with larb is very Thai-centric and your nationalistic views are not appropriate for this article. - Wikicentral (talk) 21:18, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Takeaway has already acknowledged that Lao is an ethnic group, therefore, my edits have nothing to do with nationalism, but with the origin of larb and the migration patterns of the Lao ethnic group into Lanna and Isan (the northern/northeastern regions of Thailand), thus bringing their traditional Lao ethnic dishes with them into those regions of Thailand. The same Lao ethnic group exists in both Laos and Thailand, yet Takeaway has contradicted himself by trying to separate that same Lao ethnic group based on their nationality and locale, thus Takeaway is promoting his own POV based on nationalism. Takeaway's edits are nationalistic and very Thai-centric with little historical relevance. Within Wikipedia itself, you may refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_Kings_of_Lanna to see a long list of Lao kings that had ruled the region that became Lanna. Mangrai was the 25th Lao king in the Lao dynasty that established the Lanna kingdom, which is why traditional Lao foods including larb and its variations exist in northern Thailand. - Wikicentral (talk) 21:18, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry but there are hardly any Lao in Northern Thailand. If correct, there's is one small village and some scattered Laotian people who have fled the communist regime in Laos.

King's of Lanna indeed have "Lao" in their family name when transcribed into Latin script. They are said to have descended from the kings of Ngoenyang, which is regarded as the first kingdom of the Tai Yuan people, in other words, northern Thai people, and not Laotian people. Their family name "Lao" is often also transcribed as "Lawa" or "Lava" and it is surmised that this comes from the Lawa people who originally inhabited northern Thailand before the arrival of the Tai people, of which the Tai Yuan (northern Thais) are one. The kings of northern Thailand are said to be descendants of a Lawa chieftain, who married with a Tai princess. What you are doing, assuming that the word Lao (the people) and Lao (the family name) have the same meaning, is original research and not valid whatsoever. It would also be very interesting to know how it is written in Thai or Lao script? Is it then still the same?

As for your statement that any dish must have a country of origin, then this country would probably be China as that is the country where all Tai peoples came from before settling in Laos, Thailand, and Burma. The Tai peoples who still live in China indeed also eat their style of larb. As this is a very ancient dish of which the oldest variants are eaten raw, it can be assumed that China would then be the place of origin for larb in its original form.

Most tourists and foreigners only know the southern Lao/Isan version of larb, which indeed is assumed to have originated in Laos. The northern Thai version of the Tai Yuan people is generally assumed to have originated in Phrae. A reliable source for this is the web blog of Austin Bush, who is the writer on, and photographer of, food for Lonely Planet and other publications. One can assume that whatever he writes is reliable and notable. - Takeaway (talk) 10:13, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Lao people originated in China and then migrated to what is now known as Laos and then continued on to what is now known as northern Thailand. Those people you refer to as Tai are actually Lao people. Lao people make up the majority in northern Thailand. Tai is a terminology that is used when separating the Lao people into individual tribes. Tai is a smaller tribal name, but collectively they are known by their larger name which is Lao. Since you have no idea what Tai means as a word, then I suggest that you do some more research. - Wikicentral (talk) 06:45, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't think what you're saying represents the conventional terminology recognised by most people. Everyone else seems to understand the term Lao people as a subgroup of Tai peoples. It might indeed be the case that Lao is used as an encompassing term by some, but we need to stick to the most commonly recognised use of the terms. --Paul_012 (talk) 06:04, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

File:Laapjpg.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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February 2013

The "creator" parameter in the infobox isn't even relevant for traditional dishes like this. I'd like to begin by suggesting it be removed altogether. --Paul_012 (talk) 16:11, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Is this dish related to "Sang choi bow"?

There is a similar dish apparently with no Wikipedia article but many Google hits.

Its name appears Chinese and appears in many spellings such as "san choy bau".

Could it be that this is a Southern Chinese dish inspired by contact with their Lao neighbours to the south? — Hippietrail (talk) 07:40, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

I would have to do further research, but I would not be surprised since it is a known fact that southern Chinese culture was influenced by Lao culture. The Mekong River in southern China is known as Lan Cang in Chinese, which is another spelling for the Lao kingdom of Lan Xang. Lao people migrated from China...to Laos...and then to Thailand. That was their migration route. During those times, there was no northern Thailand as that area was comprised of Lao principalities that were collectively known as the Lan Na kingdom. In Southeast Asia, Lao people referred to their kingdoms as Lan followed by a noun, such as Lan Xang and Lan Na to show power and strength in numbers because Lan means a million in the Lao language. In the Lao language, Lan Xang means a Million Elephants and Lan Na means a Million Rice Fields. Lan Xang became Laos and Lan Na became northern Thailand. Both kingdoms originated from the Lao people. - Wikicentral (talk) 07:00, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

It is fairly unclear where "sang choi baw" comes from as it only seems to feature on menus of Chinese restaurants in Australia. Perhaps it's Chinese, perhaps it's an Australian-Chinese restaurant adaptation of Lao/Thai larb. Who knows? As for Lanna being originally Lao principalities: the Lanna language is closest to the Shan language of Burma and the Dai language of Yunnan in China, and about as related to the Laotian language as it is to the Central Thai language. The French colonial masters of Vietnam and Laos had proclaimed the ancient Lanna Kingdom in present-day northern Thailand as being "Western Laos", and the British colonial masters of Burma proclaimed it the Southern Shan States, both hoping to eventually also colonialise the former independent Lanna Kingdom which had in the meantime fallen into Central Thai (Bangkok) hands by the late 18th century. - Takeaway (talk) 20:02, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Salad?

I'll never get why Larb is always called a salad. I mean, it's cooked with meat and eaten warm with rice. It's as much a salad as a minestrone is a pudding. Maikel (talk) 12:10, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

A salad doesn't necessarily need to be made with raw vegetables, or served cold. Western examples would be potato salad, pasta salad, or warm cabbage salad from Austria. What makes something a salad is that the individual ingredients are assembled (not cooked together) and mixed in with a dressing. This applies to larb. - Takeaway (talk) 18:09, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

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New findings of laab origins: Lanna's

Hi, due to some debate online of its origins I was curious and went to research. Here's my findings:

According to citing #11, a Thai article reported in a local newspaper by Lanna enthusiasts of Chiang Mai University, Thailand, states that laab has a meaning in Lanna scripts as updated. The link provides you with picture of the word in Lanna alphabets. Which comes to the conclusion that Lanna was indeed its originator while there is no definition of the word in Laotian as far as I know. I respectfully removed the nationality of the dish but left the national dish part in because a dish could be of that country's national treasure despite its origins and if it was cited correctly, I did not checked. I didn't specify the modern country that owns the dish but if you want the closest connection it would be of northern Thai since some parts still use the dialect and where Lanna was geographically situated. Lanna was laab creator while Thailand was still Siam and Laos was Lan Xang. While both countries popularized the dish I would not specifically called it solely their own but different styles. This is the most historically accurate source that I could find if someone has a counter argument please do update.

With laab. Researchffffreak (talk) 11:15, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for contributing to the article.

Unfortunately, I will have to disagree with your conclusion and some of your edits. I changed it back to a more commonly accepted Lao origin –there are more sources to support it.

You cited one article with no other citations (no source(s) found in the article either) and then concludes an entire history and origin from the Lanna script. I understand that we have limited sources, but I am not comfortable messing around with common and already accepted knowledge because of one online article.

I have always been curious though, what language do the people of ancient Lanna actually speak?

In Lao, the word “laab” also has the same meaning or implication in the common vernacular - to slice/chop, as in, “oaw bpai laab”, but that also has fallen out of usage and replaced with “fak” or even “soi”. Most commonly, the word is associated with “auspicious” or “lucky” because laab is the type of dish one would normally find and consume on special occasions. Isan1985 (talk) 17:31, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Well that's unfortunate.

Laab has the same meaning it does in Thai/Isan as in Laotian then does it means laab is as much Thai now with that logic? Ironically, an article published in local newspapers is less qualified than a self entry blog post and an expired soundcloud. Also, if by sources you mean anecdotes and articles written or journaled by westerners or colonizers after the fall of Lanna, then I have not found one yet. Until then, enjoy your comfort of collectivism.

For educational purposes, I rephrased the deleted section and added it back. Just the facts. Let the readers decide for themselves what to do with that information. Be fair.

Researchffffreak (talk) 19:27, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Please spare me your moralizing. If these same "sources or ancedotes and articles written or joirnaled by westerners or colonizers" had supported your version of history you would have no problem using them. I would also recommend steering clear from the topic of colonization when we talk about Lanna.

In your research, I hope now know why there weren't a lot of historical sources mentioning Lanna... But I bet you did find a lot of information on the Kingdom of Chiang Mai, Muang Nan, Muang Prae, Muang Lampang etc., and its inhabitants - the Lao or "Black Bellied" Lao. You talked about fairness, education, facts, and letting the readers decide for themselves what to do with THAT information, but did you ever acknowledged that these region/cities were all called Lao states/cities? Did you fairly presents THAT information to an audience, and letting them decide, the last time you lectured about the history of Lanna?

Also Laab has the same meaning in Thai/Isan because it is in Lao. There is no such thing as Isan language. Isan1985 (talk) 01:48, 17 May 2023 (UTC)