Day 4&5 – Four Thoughts on Cambodian Food

These days were the core of the class we are teaching. So life pretty much consisted of working eating and sleeping. The former and latter make bad blog fodder, so I am going to focus on the food. In fact, I think I’ll do four thoughts on Cambodian Food.

1. New Fruit![1] I’m a fan of fruit…but actually discovering new fruit, it is like learning that there were missing episodes of Firefly that had not previously been released.

2. Admirable use of Mushrooms. I had no idea that a) there were so many forms of edible mushrooms or b) that they were invariably delicious. I applauded SE Asia’s commitment to the mushroom.

3. Fish Culture: Between the Mekong and the Tonle Sap (more on that later), Cambodia has a long tradition in fishing and fish consumption…the latter of which being a tradition I observed during my time here.

4. Omnivory[2]: Here is a short list of foods I have eaten in Cambodia that are a little eccentric from western standards: snail, snake, crocodile, and frog.
 
Here’s some pics of a few meals:

Stuffed Calamari

Amok – the quintessential Cambodian dish…in discrete format.

 

 

This might have been my favorite meal.  My first day at Angkor Thom I got caught out in a monsoon.  There was a fun outdoor food tent at the by the tuk tuks.  I got a plate of hot spring rolls and they were awesome.

 

 

 

I got Cambodian BBQ one night and was surprisingly proficient at it…but only because I had seen the grill masterfully negotiated in my trip to Bangkok last month.
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[1] A few weeks after moving to California, Amanda and I watched the film KPAX in which Kevin Spacey plays an ambiguous, quasi-alien character. He eats a bunch of Bananas and says “the produce alone is worth the trip.” We began saying that about our new life as west coasters.
[2]In its strict ecological definition, omnivory isn’t eating plants and animals, it is eating species from multiple trophic levels…and that list includes at least three if not four trophic levels.