The Thai Dish at the Center of Today’s Google Doodle

The popular search engine is no stranger to cheeky displays. Google famously customizes their logo with Google Doodles in celebration of holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and, today, a particularly renowned noodle dish. They’ve transformed their polychromatic interface into a bright animated story, one that gives a peek into the making of Pad Thai.

The doodle follows a cast of blue, red, and yellow figures as they slice, dice, simmer, and steam. In its final scene they dive, chopsticks in hand, into a heaping bowl of rice noodles scattered with shrimp and spritzed with fresh lime juice. Through stuffed cheeks, they smile, relishing in one of Thailand’s most famous dishes. According to Google, Pad Thai emerged during World War II when a rice shortage rendered the staple almost inaccessible. Instead, people turned to rice noodles, a cheaper, more available alternative. The national dish gets its characteristic sweetness from tamarind and is loaded with vegetables and fish or shrimp.

In honor of today’s doodle, consider making one of our favorite Pad Thai recipes—each showcasing the dish’s enduring popularity and endless variability.

Have a Pad Thai preference? If so, let us know about it in the comments.