Thai peanut sauce tastes good on just about anything. And Pad Thai is great. But those dishes must be a relatively recent addition to their cuisine, am I right? Peanuts were, IIRC, unknown elsewhere in the world until Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492… and even then, it had to have been quite a few years before peanuts made their way to Thailand (Siam). Or did they use some other local peanut-equivalent legume long before South American peanuts and their offspring made it to Asia?
It wouldn’t be the first time that a culture did a 180 when a new foodstuff became available. Witness: potatos in Ireland, tomatos in Italy, pepper and tea in Europe.
More info from Sawadee.com
Chillis too.
It is impossible to overstate the revolution in agriculture caused by the introduction of new world crops to the old world, and vice-versa. Maize, potatoes, chilies, sweet potatoes, beans, squash, tomatoes, peanuts, sunflowers, cotton, chocolate, the list goes on and on.
In nearly every society in the world, the food served today is wildly different from the food served pre-1492. When someone tells you that a food item is traditional in their culture, take that as meaning that it’s something that would be served sometime around 1900 to 1950. If they say that some other item is fairly new in their culture, it probably means that it’s only been served there since about 1950 or later. Most people in most societies in the world don’t even know accurately what people in their society ate in 1450. They might not even be terribly accurate about what people in their society ate in 1850.
Remind me again which countries use cotton in their cuisine, so I can avoid them in the future. 
OK, how 'bout the USA? (And you from Virginia!)
I meant the actual cotton, not the… sigh
Besides, I’m not from here, I just live here now. 
Well, chocolate-covered cotton, at least.
Hee hee. Of course I knew what you meant. I just like poking you fancy SDSABers with a verbal stick once in a while. As far as I know, no one uses cotton fluff in cooking. Except maybe my grandmother. It could explain just how she gets her meatloaf that dry and nasty.
Oh, but I do know my dad uses cotton twine to tie up his roasts, so there! Pick that nit, will you? 
Lots of fiber.
Well, if he eats it too (on purpose), I’ll stand corrected.
Has Major Major Major Major approved that for serving in the squadron mess hall?
Americans who used Crisco were, until recently, using hydrogenated cottonseed oil, which does come from the cotton plant.
Uh…cotton candy?
I got nuthin.
Yeah, but everybody gets a share!
Besides “phat thai,” peanuts are great in “som tam.” The traditional kind, NOT the type with crab.
What, you never had Red Flannel Hash? Red Velvet Cake? How about a Sheet Cake?
Someone on the SDSAB wrote something on this. I would have hoped that someone else might have remembered it, but I guess the author is pretty forgettable.
Well, I didn’t notice that you referenced Thai dishes directly, but perhaps that is an oversight on my part. I would speculate, idly rather than scientifically, that peanut sauce may have come to Thailand via Malaysia, since the it’s chiefly used on Satay which is not a Thai innovation. Satay probably spread throughout Southeast Asia from Indonesia, but most likely it arrived in southern Thailand via the porous border with Malaysia and spread from there throughout the rest of the country.