One person's move to Cambodia in an attempt to make trade fair -- fair wages for producers and fair prices for consumers. Bloom eco-friendly bags are recycled bags hand made by fairly paid workers in Cambodia that are sought after by ethical consumers everywhere.
I took these photos on April 6, when I went with my friend Mavis on one of her many trips to feed poor people in Mondul 3 district, a very poor area in Siem Reap. Tourists are often surprised to learn that Siem Reap is one of the poorest provinces in the country. Step out of Siem Reap town, barely 30 mins away on a motorbike, and you will see the crushing poverty. (In 2008, I wrote about New Hope, an NGO operating in Mondul 3).
Mavis (in the middle) is a Singaporean mother of two who has lived in Malacca, the former Portugese colonial town in Malaysia, for two decades. She started a food programme in Malacca and brought the programme to Siem Reap about 2 years ago, which was when we first met.
The beauty on the back of the motorbike is Jesseca Liu, a popular Malaysian-born, Singapore-based, actress. Jesseca had come for a visit with her family but got stuck without a flight out (long story). It was funny, we took her for a massage in Siem Reap and all the massage girls insisted on taking a photo with Jesseca cos they recognised her as Ruan Mian Mian, the Vietnamese bride in a Singapore drama series called "Portrait of Home" (同心圆). The show was dubbed in Khmer and shown on TV. Everywhere we went Khmers would gawk and say she is sa'at. They especially loved her fair skin. Having met her I can confirm she really is beautiful, inside and out.
This is one of my heroes, Bel, a Cambodian man who lost his right leg when he stepped on a landmine when he was nine. Bel helps Mavis by delivering the food she cooks to the villagers. I was so touched seeing him ride his moto holding on to his crutch with the packets of food strapped to the back of the bike.
Bel in front, Mavis and Jess on second bike. I'm behind them on another moto, balancing sitting side saddle and taking these photos. Yes, I am almost local!
The first stop. You can see why. A malnourished girl with her mom who has 3 other children. Boxes of food (vegetarian, Mavis believes it is best) for the whole family.
Food for the families identified as very poor
Here you can see Bel, on his crutch, feeding the children. I am always touched when I see these photos. Really, to the point of tears. Here is a man whose life must have been hard. He told me he remembers bleeding, bleeding all over the place and the trip to the hospital took over a day and when he arrived, he was stinking from sweat and blood and no wonder the nurses weren't kind.
And look at Bel now. Only in his twenties and a proud man helping his fellow Khmers. I know I can be cynical and doubt the good foreigners like me are doing for this country because Khmers can be so manipulative and corrupt. But people like Bel put me to shame. He still has a hard life but despite this he tries to help other disabled people whom he takes in and feeds. I want to do more for people like Bel. They really do deserve better.
Wee happy children with wee packets of crackers.
Where the children live. Leaf roof, zinc and cardboard walls. Where is the toilet I hear you ask. There is none. They do everything in the bushes. No running water either. Water is from common wells some distance away.
Nothing is wasted. Leftover rice is dried in the sun and fed to the animals. Mavis will be back Tues and I'll post more photos of our next trip. Read more about Bel and Mavis here at atablefortwo.com.au. If you would like to donate to help Mavis please go to Touch A Life. If you would like the money to go to Bel and his KILT (Khmer Independent Life Team), please let Mavis know.
"This is Chauncy Morlan, and around 100 years ago his obesity was so shocking that people would pay money to see him as he toured the country as a circus “fat man”. I find the unremarkableness of his size to be a telling sign of how we’ve pushed the limits of obesity in the past 100 years. Imagine, if you will, what society would look like if 100 years from now if what passed as spectacularly obese today would not even turn heads at the mall."
Michelle Obama brought fat back into the picture with her plans to fight childhood obesity. The US is the fattest developed nation, and Americans consume on average 2,700 calories a day - about 500 calories more than 40 years ago, more than what Cambodians consume today. (Does that mean Khmers are tinier than Americans 40 years ago?)
In 2008, 68 percent of American adults were overweight, and 34 percent were obese; roughly one in three children and adolescents was overweight, and nearly one in five was obese. By 2015, a shocking 41 per cent of Americans will be obese.
"Beating Obesity" is a thoughtful article on the subject. Written by Marc Ambinder and published in the Atlantic, Ambinder himself was obese, and chose the US$30,000 bariatric surgery. He lost 85 pounds (38.6kg).
"But why did the obesity rate accelerate in the United States beginning in the 1980s, setting us apart from our peers in other developed countries? (Though the Mexicans and the British come close.)," asks Ambinder. "Did Ronald Reagan’s declaration that “it’s morning again in America” prompt us all to start eating bigger breakfasts?"
It's a complicated issue and fat people may be lacking the FTO gene. Which is not to say people do not have a responsibility to try to gain control of their weight.
I for one applaud Ms Obama for having the guts to tackle this issue, because in this PC (politically correct) age, you can be accused of "fattism". Governments can and should do more.
Ambinder writes: “[I]f you go with the flow in America today, you will end up overweight or obese,” Thomas Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told me when I met him at an obesity conference in Washington last summer. “This does not absolve individuals of the responsibility of trying to get more exercise and eat healthier. But it suggests a synergy between policy intervention and personal efforts to lose weight.”
The US government should also pay attention to obesity because it is costs the country's coffers billions of dollars. According to the Surgeon General the total annual cost of obesity in the United States was $117 billion for the year 2000.
A more recent 2008 study by The Conference Board found the cost to the US economy in lost working days and extra healthcare costs is a US$45 billion a year. Also in today's WSJ Marketwatch: "If you don't lose weight your finances will".
So I wish Michelle Obama well and hope she fares better than the Naked Chef Jamie Oliver did. Oliver was reduced to tears trying to convince Virginians to eat better.
I noticed a spike in readers visiting my blog post Pyongyang restaurant - about our April 2007 visit to the restaurant in Phnom Penh. Curious.
So I googled and lo and behold, Slate just published a an article on the same restaurant (now in a different location, since the restaurant has moved - but it is still on Monivorng if I am not wrong). I did notice Siem Reap's Pyongyang restaurant had closed last year and Slate offers and explanation:
"A year ago, the Pyongyang restaurants in Cambodia and Thailand suddenly closed their doors, only to reopen again after a six-month hiatus. [Bertil Lintner, author of Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North Korean Under the Kim Clan] cited an Asian diplomat in Bangkok saying the restaurants, like all "capitalist" enterprises, were hit hard by the global economic crisis, but locals familiar with the establishment in Phnom Penh offered another explanation. One worker at a nearby business said Pyongyang closed after a dispute with a Cambodian customer who tried to take one of its North Korean waitresses out for "drinks" after dinner."
I would not be surprised, especially if that customer was a powerful "niak thom" (literally "big person").
Read full article here. PS: Photo-taking is supposedly prohibited at the restaurant but give credit to Slate for this one!
Just watched a documentary on Animal Planet on the illegal shark fin trade. Sharkwater is an award-winning Canadian documentary by Rob Stewart who exposes the exploitation and corruption of the shark-hunting industry in the marine reserves of Cocos Island, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. He shows how the voracious shark-hunting industry is driving sharks to extinction.
The demand for shark fins in Asia is fuelling this demand. Sadly this practice of eating shark fins has been transported to Cambodia where you can order shark fin soup at some Chinese restaurants in Phnom Penh.
Calling all Cambodians and others - stop ordering the soup! Your demand is feeding an illegal and immoral industry. Sharks are caught and their one and only dorsal fin sliced off and the sharks themselves are thrown back, alive and breathing, into the sea. Without the dorsal fin, the shark sinks to the bottom of the ocean where it dies a slow death by drowning.
Why do the fishermen not keep the whole shark? The reason is simple - money.
It is expensive to provide storage space for the giant sharks on fishing boats and financially more profitable for the fishermen to just take the fins. It's an incredible wastage. And for what?
1) Shark's Fin is tasteless. (Most people just like the taste of the crabmeat and the seasoning they put into the soup)
2) Shark's Fin has ZERO nutritional value.
3) It is ridiculously expensive at US$100 in some places for a bowl of the soupy stuff and up to US$1300 for a shark fin - why would you want to help these people get rich? The fishermen, middle men and restaurant owners are all laughing at you - how easy it is to make money out of stupid, unthinking, people.
“Mercury will not dissolve in cooking,” WildAid Asia consultant Rebecca Chen Chih-hsiao warned. “It is harmful to the brain and nervous system. Pregnant women should definitely avoid eating shark fin as it can damage the mobility and slow down the development of babies.” Chen said shark fin has more bad than good nutritional value, yet the demand for it has grown over the past 10 years as the delicacy became a status symbol.
As usual these stupid people who chase after "status symbols" do not ask questions, simply following fashion trends (I call them sheep-people because they are just like sheep, following the herd).
Eating shark fin soup is another one of these trends. The dish was just a regional delicacy in Canton, south China, until the late 1980s. I learnt this after joining the Facebook group "Do not serve Shark's Fin at YOUR wedding dinner!" started by a Singaporean Chinese woman (as I am). In Singapore, the dish is typically offered at weddings so hotels can charge you an arm an a leg and some couples imagine the dish makes them look rich since they pay so much for it. It's pathetic, really.
In Singapore, the younger, educated, Chinese population is making a stance against this disgusting "tradition" - I put inverted commas because as Singaporean Chinese, it is clearly not our tradition, since the practice was imported from Canton (contrast this with yusheng for instance). Not that tradition should mean much - why keep superstitious and irrational traditional practices? My favourite no-brainer example here is Sati, the custom of burning a widow upon her husband's death in parts of India. That practice was banned in 1829 by the British but one woman was reported to have committed Sati even as late as 2008.
In April last year a rally was held in Singapore to raise awareness against the consumption of shark fins. A large banner bearing the slogan "when sharks die, the oceans die" was displayed at a nearby park close to Singapore's business district. The organisers said more than 3,800 sharks were caught every 20 minutes to meet global demand for shark fin, pushing many shark species towards extinction. A Reuters report in March 2009 Shark fin out of vogue for young Asians summed up how younger people view the practice.
Despite the efforts, Singapore, along with Taiwan and Spain are the biggest suppliers. Hong Kong is on another level on its own - responsible for handling 50-80% of the world's trade in shark fins. A third of all fins imported to Hong Kong come from Europe, with Spain being the largest supplier by far. Other European countries involved include Norway, Britain, France, Portugal and Italy. Fins have also been found to originate from the coastlines of the US, Belize, Panama, Brazil (and Costa Rica as revealed by Sharkwater.) [More information and photo below on gardenofeaden].
So it was unsurprising to read a report released just 2 days ago by Oceana.org: "Surging demand for shark fin soup among Asia's booming middle classes is driving many species of these big fish to the brink of extinction." Up to 73 million sharks are killed each year, primarily for their fins.
"As a result, some populations have plummeted by as much as 83 percent, prompting the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to consider proposals at its two-week meeting in Doha to regulate the shark trade.
At least eight shark species, including the scalloped hammerhead and the oceanic whitetip, are being considered for CITES listing which would put some controls on their export.
"The global shark fin trade is driving the oceans to collapse," Courtney Sakai, a senior campaign director at Oceana, said in a statement. "Trade measures are the most direct way to ensure that the powerful economic incentives to catch sharks do not lead to their extinction."
If you are a city person like me, you may be puzzled by the jackfruit. I was. I noticed we had all this huge, bloated jackfruit and I kept telling Alan we had to get them down - they look like they were about to burst. We chopped a few down but - they were not yet ripe! I opened one up and spat it out because it tasted raw: it was hard, tasteless and had this sticky feeling.
So we thought, maybe it is like other fruit, just leave it and it'll ripen. After about a week, the fruit started to go black and I panicked, so gave one to the neighbour and the two left to Phoen, the tuktuk driver. He said it was edible and tastes good when it was that colour. I asked him when was the right time to get the fruit down and he said you can cut the fruit down once the leaves around it have started to decay (you can see the dead leaf in the next photo). Our neighbour said we can pick the fruit once it starts to give off a sweet smell (jackfruit smells quite strong). But it was already smelling when I chopped it down. I guess it has to really smell before you can eat it.
Then the landlord came and chopped down a couple more. He left a giant one for us. He said we should eat it only a few days later when it starts to smell. Then he wedged a bamboo stick in the centre of the fruit. I think the bamboo stick was stuck in there to help the food ripen. By the way, that's Nessie smelling the stick and Buster looking on.
This is the top view of the stick stuck into the jackfruit. You can see the decayed leaf and the sticky, gummy jackfruit being pulled apart by the bamboo stick. (That's Austin's nose in there).
And this is what the jackfruit looks like cut open. The landlord first cut it in half, then quartered the two halves. You can see the yellow flesh and the seeds. The bit you are supposed to eat is the yellow flesh covering the brown seeds. I'll show you that in a sec. And that's Austin again. Don't you just love his white-tipped tail? He reminds me of Sylvester the Cat sometimes.
Jackfruit seeds and flesh. This is what you are supposed to eat, the flesh covering the seeds. Uncover the flesh and you will find oval seeds which can be boiled and eaten. They taste just like potato. That's Nessie and Sooty greeting each other in the background.
After digging out the seeds, you are left with this. The yellow flesh is short and stringy, but tastes just like the stuff covering the seeds, so I asked the landlord if it can be eaten - seems like a waste to throw it all away. He says it can be cooked in soups. I just picked at it and ate it. It's nice, but an awful lot for 2 people! In the end I gave most to Kagna, our shop assistant. And that's Austin and Nessie in the photo. They are our first 2 dogs. We'd adopted them in Phnom Penh in 2006 when they were mere pups and they braved the rain and sun with us on the 8 hour drive to Siem Reap in 2007. We had rented a lorry and whenever it rained, the driver would cover us with tarp and we'd huddle together. I love my dogs.
"Hao Xianzhang, a Chinese farmer, spent six years to perfect the process by growing the pears inside moulds, local media reported. The pears cost around 50 yuan (7.32 USD) each." I don't know about you, but the little green buddhas look kindda creepy hanging from branches...
And presenting Japanese contributions to weird and wacky fruit shapes:
"These romantic cucumbers are selling at fancy supermarkets in Tokyo and as specially ordered wedding gifts at ceremonies throughout Japan. They cost 300 yen each (about US$2.50)."
Kiroichi Kimura and his wife have perfected a way of growing heart-shaped watermelons, which sell for up to US$160. It took three years to develop the process, which involves implanting a watermelon seed in a giant's heart and then slaying it and removing the melon afterward.
A tourist from the US told me about some big US company opening up in Cambodia to grow corn. It turns out the corn will be used for animal feed, which leads to the conclusion that industrial commercial farming will no doubt be carried out in this country.
It's always been a possibility because farming is mostly still done by small-time farmers (backyard farmers) across the country. According to Cambodia's Department of Animal Health and Production (DAHP), six per cent of the chickens in Cambodia are raised in commercial farms and 94% in non-commercial farms. For ducks the figures are 29% and 71% respectively. (quoted in this 2004 report by the UN FAO [PDF]. FAO is short for Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Chicken farming in Cambodia
A google search of poultry farms only garnered one listing: R.V.J. POULTRY FARM in Phnom Penh Cambodia.
Chicken farmers have not had an easy time this year. From a July article in the Phnom Penh Post found on worldpoultry.net: "Cambodia poultry industry struggling"
Dozens of the Kingdom's chicken farmers say they have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars as they are forced to shut down. They blame the global economic crisis for their woes and now fear the possible impact of bird flu, they said...
Man Veasna, 57, lost $4,000 on his chicken farm, and said 25 other farms in the village had gone bust.
"Do you know why so many chicken farms have gone bankrupt? I can tell you that the main reason is the increasing cost of raising chickens - this has exceeded the income that can be earned from them," he said. "If we continue raising chickens, we will lose more money, and eventually our homes and our land."
Sar Sochetra, the office manager in MAFF's The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) department of animal health and production told the Post there are 237 chicken farms breeding the birds for meat, and 45 farming them for eggs. He added meat-raising farms have about two million chickens, while egg-raising farms have about one-tenth of that number.
KFC is the largest buyer of chickens in the world and it's no different in Cambodia, where they opened doors last year. Benjamin Jerome, general manager of KFC Cambodia, told the Phnom Penh Post the company buys 20 tonnes of chicken a month for its four outlets.
I hope the day will never come for Cambodia's first battery farm.
Battery Farming
According to "Battery hens and broiler chickens", an article published in politics.co.uk),
"In the poultry industry, factory farms or "batteries" were designed to maximise production and minimise costs, through methods including high stocking densities, close control of the availability of food, water and light, selective breeding and medication."
[...]
Opponents of battery farming condemn the conditions that egg laying hens are kept in. Birds are kept in cramped and overcrowded conditions, in which they are unable to perform natural behaviours such as scratching and dust-bathing; they are frequently "debeaked" in order to prevent fighting and self-harm; they are denied darkness and food in order to encourage constant egg-laying; and conditions in sheds can be unhygienic, with hens living amongst dead birds and faeces. Laying hens have also been selectively bred to produce unnaturally large numbers of eggs - up to 330 per year. Studies have shown this breeding to have increased susceptibility to cancer. Unwanted male chicks bred in the laying industry, moreover, are gassed shortly after birth.
[...]
Conditions for broilers are marginally better, insofar as they are not raised in cages, but on the ground, but again in cramped, dark and hot sheds. Poor facilities can mean that broilers walk around in their own excreta, causing foot ulcerations and "hock burns" - black marks caused by ammonia that can sometimes be seen on chickens in the shops.
However, the main welfare problem with regard to broilers is the impact of selective breeding on the birds themselves. Broilers reach their slaughter weight in around 40 days, half the time birds took to reach full size 30 years ago. This growth rate puts immense strain on their hearts and lungs, and their legs are frequently unable to support their overgrowth bodies.
Besides the cruelty, there are also health concerns such as salmonella and hormones. A friend of mine in Singapore had a yeast infection that just would not go away, until her doctor told her to cut out chicken.
On Jan 1, 1992, Switzerland became the first country to ban battery farms. It's also banned in Belgium, Austria, Sweden and the Netherlands and throughout the European Union from 2012. Battery cages will also be banned in California in 2015.
Technically, it's a rooster. I know because it has been crowing non-stop since it arrive on a motorcycle a couple of hours ago. So I shot it (geddit? hahaha!)
It's not the first time the cobbler who sits just outside the shop has brought a chicken along with him. He ties it to a pole (you can see the raffia string on the rooster's left leg in this photo) and takes it with him when he goes home.
The cobbler, who was born in Vietnam but has lived here for a decade, told me he paid 30,000 riels (US$7.50) for this rooster. When I expressed surprise at the price, he said it is from Vietnam. It'll be eaten he said.
"A nutritionist in Nigeria says that malnutrition and iron deficiency in schoolchildren could be reduced in her country by baking up snail pie.
In a research paper to be published in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health, she explains snail is not only cheaper and more readily available than beef but contains more protein.
[...]
Iron deficiency and a lack of protein in the diet affect young mothers and their children in many developing countries including Nigeria, according to the World Health Organisation leading to serious health problems. There is no quick fix for the problem of malnutrition in such countries, but alternative to high-cost meat products could help.
Snail meat contains protein, fat (mainly polyunsaturated fatty acid), iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, zinc, vitamins A, B6, B12, K and folate. It also contains the amino acids arginine and lysine at higher levels than in whole egg. It also contains healthy essential fatty acids such as linoleic and linolenic acids. The high-protein, low-fat content of snail meat makes it a healthy alternative food."
I just found this! I like wine. By the way, I have no idea what Sauterne wine yeast is and if anyone can buy some as well as acid blend and Campden tablet, please let me know where from. Better yet, if you succeed in making this, please send me a bottle. Heck I'll settle for a glass :) I believe in vino veritas!
Bring 1 quart water to boil and add rice; boil for 3 minutes. Meanwhile, chop the dates and mix then with the coconut in a boiler. Strain the rice, adding the water from it to the boiler containing the coconut and chopped dates. Bring to a boil and hold for 15 minutes. Strain the water over the sugar, yeast nutrients and acid blend and stir until dissolved completely. Allow to cool to room temperature, transfer to primary and add activated yeast. Cover and ferment until initially vigorous fermentation subsides, then transfer to secondary and attach an airlock. After 3 months, rack into clean secondary with crushed and dissolved Campden tablet, top up and refit airlock. Wait 3 additional months and rack, top up and refit airlock again. After additional month, stabilize, sweeten if desired and rack into bottles. [Adapted from recipe by C.J.J. Berry]
I buy instant noodles because they are easy to cook and handy when I'm hungry. I know it's bad for health because of all the preservatives and what not but I am lazy and a lousy cook to boot. I love 麻辣火锅 "ma la huo guo" (literally "sesame and chili hotpot") and still drool when I think of 水煮鱼 "shui zhu yu" (literally "water cook fish"), a Sichuan dish I had in Beijing. Don't let the second name fool you, "water cook fish" is a dish with slices of tender fish cooked in chili oil, with a whole lot of chili on top. It is very, very spicy but my mouth is watering as I type this. I am Singaporean and we like our chili! Sadly, you can get "ma la huo guo" in Singapore but not "shui zhu yu"...
So I was excited when I found this at Lucky Supermarket. On the packet of the instant noodles it says The Flavours of Yunnan China- I've never been to Yunnan so was interested. The flavours I chose were "hong shao niu rou" 红烧牛肉 (red braised beef) and "suan la niu rou" 酸辣牛肉 (sour and hot beef). In English, it said "Beef with Brown Sauce" and "Acid and Peppery Beef".
Fortunately I knew what the makers were trying to say with the acid beef but I did wonder if the name hurt sales...
Then today I visited a blog mandevu.net by another foreigner in Cambodia and he had a photo of a flashlight from China which said "powerful, weak, blinker, siren, amplifier, rechargeable, easiness schlep."
The writer was nonplussed, as I must say, I am. He makes a great note:
But I still marvel at how a word from a language spoken mainly by Jews of Eastern European origin (with speakers numbering a little over 3 million people) found its way onto a Chinese-made flashlight, and then into the hands of a police officer in rural Cambodia. No, it is not the first example of nifty global linkages which I have ever seen. But it is indeed one of my favorites.
I was offered some "krolyiang" the other day. The whole bag pictured costs just 500riels or USD0.125 cents. It's a kind of furry berry which is rather tasteless. The fur feels weird on your tongue. It is very small, and has a hard seed. It looks like the wolfberry/枸杞(gou qi) but I'm not sure. I tried to google to find the English name but had no luck.
I did find this interesting site listing tropical fruits by scientific name. Many of the links have photos so I had an interesting browse. Click on Morus Nigra or Black Mulberry - it looks like a stubby caterpillar!
Anyway, the tree must be common enough. There is even a market here in Siem Reap, Psar dum krolyiang, which is named after the fruit tree. If anyone knows its English name, please let me know :)
I just found these photos. The only thing I miss - Singapore food. The best, yummiest food on the planet!
So how? No chwee kueh, chicken rice, laksa, wantan mee, bakuteh. Ta-pao lah! (Singaporeans planning to visit, please don't bother asking me what I want. I only want food from home...!)
My friend Swee brought all these goodies when she visited me in Phnom Penh in 2007 (the Brahim's kuah rendang or rendang paste is for Alan, whose favourite food is curry).
Trimmings from Little India in Singapore. Swee actually went around the Indian shops to look for ideas for me. She bought me these beautiful trimmings, which are sold by the metre. Swee suggested we add these lace and beaded trims to our bags to make them stand out. Unfortunately these and more lace and beaded trims that I subsequently bought from a large home decor store in Johor Bahru in Malaysia were all stolen by our first helper, Ming Vee, the widow from Baray district in Kampong Thom. So we never did make bags with beaded trims. Wonder how they would have looked like?
I just heard from a Dutch customer turned friend, Kirsten, who pointed to this BBC production: Rick Stein takes the viewer on an epic culinary journey by sea, down rivers and overland to explore the Far East's diverse food cultures, which have soared to the heights of popularity the world over.
"He begins his odyssey in Cambodia, a country still recovering from the regime of the Khmer Rouge. Nevertheless, tourists are beginning to return to this land dotted with sugar palms, paddy fields and small villages. Rick discovers the joys of freshly caught swimmer crabs cooked with green peppercorns from Kampot, once the king of pepper. He learns how to cook the most famous dish in the country, fish amok, made with lemongrass and coconut, and he samples lok lak, an extremely popular and delicious dish made with stir-fried strips of marinated beef. Rick visits the awe-inspiring Angkor Wat temple before joining a rice barge to take him down the mighty Mekong River to the border of Vietnam.
Click on the link to watch Stein's gastronomical adventures (you have 20 days left to watch!). You will also find recipes for
1. Stir-fried crab with green Kampot pepper
2. Spicy green mango salad with smoked fish and a sweet-and-sour dressing
3. Cambodian marinated beef with a lime and black pepper dipping sauce
Yum. I have not had dinner and this is making me drool.
This is great! I am glad someone takes truth in advertising seriously! A May 5 letter from the US FDA. Don't know how many of you out there eat Cheerios... Thanks to rywager for adding to reddit.
Unapproved New Drug Based on claims made on your product's label, we have determined that your Cheerios® Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug because the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease. Specifically, your Cheerios® product bears the following claims ort its label:
• "you can Lower Your Cholesterol 4% in 6 weeks" " • "Did you know that in just 6 weeks Cheerios can reduce bad cholesterol by an average of 4 percent? Cheerios is ... clinically proven to lower cholesterol. A clinical study showed that eating two 1 1/2 cup servings daily of Cheerios cereal reduced bad cholesterol when eaten as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol."
These claims indicate that Cheerios® is intended for use in lowering cholesterol, and therefore in preventing, mitigating, and treating the disease hypercholesterolemia. Additionally, the claims indicate that Cheerios® is intended for use in the treatment, mitigation, and prevention of coronary heart disease through, lowering total and "bad" (LDL) cholesterol. Elevated levels of total and LDL cholesterol are a risk factor for coronary heart disease and can be a sign of coronary heart disease. Because of these intended uses, the product is a drug within the meaning of section 201(g)(1)(B) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 321 (g)P)(B)]. The product is also a new drug under section 201(p) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 321(p)] because it is not generally recognized as safe and effective for use in preventing or treating hypercholesterolemia or coronary heart disease. Therefore,under section 505(a) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 355(a)], it may not be legally marketed with the above claims in the United States without an approved new drug application.
I took these photos at home when I had century eggs. I love to eat these and mom bought a packet of 4 for me. You can't get this in Cambodia.
This must be one of the weirdest foods in the world. Century eggs are also known as preserved eggs, hundred year eggs or thousand year eggs. From wikipedia: "These are duck eggs that have been preserved in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime, and rice straw for several weeks to several months. After the process is completed, the yolk becomes a dark green, cream-like substance with a strong odor of sulphur and ammonia, while the white becomes a dark brown, transparent jelly with little flavour or taste. The transforming agent in the century egg is its alkaline material, which gradually raises the pH of the egg from around 9 to 12 or more. This chemical process breaks down some of the complex, flavorless proteins and fats, which produces a variety of smaller flavourful compounds. Some eggs have patterns near the surface of the egg white that are likened to pine branches." (click on the third photo and you can see the crystal patterns.
The fourth shows the inside of the cracked egg shell. You can see spots of black. The next one is the outside of the egg. The egg cut in half. The yolk is dark green and a bit runny and tastes weird, exactly like ammonia and sulphur but is strangely tasty. It's sometimes too strong, so people take it with vinegar preserved ginger (that's the stuff next to the egg in the last pic).
Yes, yes, I know. It's most bizarre. I myself can hardly believe I eat such things, but it tastes good. But I think it is an acquired taste. I remember not liking it as a child (like durian), but now I love it. It seems the Chinese used to wrap the eggs in the clay mixture to preserve the eggs in times of plenty. How they came up with the bizarre formula beats me.
I laughed when I watched a spider freak Mark Beaumont out somewhere in Australia. Beaumont's attempt to smash the Guinness World Record for cycling around the world was shown on BBC recently. The spider he found on his backpack, while definitely dangerous looking, was smaller than this one living in my house...If you click on the image you can see its eyes, shining green!
I actually like spiders. Those we find in the house are mostly harmless and eat insects. I googled poisonous spiders in Cambodia but all I could get were spiders as food in Cambodia. Skuon is a province famous for its hairy edible spiders and you can see a picture of it and read more here weirdmeat.com.
I have tried the spider - just the legs though, I did not dare eat what I imagined to be its gooey stomach! My friends and I tried it at Romdeng restaurant in Phnom Penh and I have to say I liked the legs. It's crunchy and tasty and the hairs weren't a bother. Bon appetit!
Fruit sold on the street as snacks during the water festival. Foreigners are often surprised that unlike the West, in Cambodia, you cannot buy just a banana or two. You have to buy the entire bunch. I always found it funny watching the sellers scold foreigners in Khmer, when the foreigners tried to break off a couple of bananas from the bunch. The hapless tourists had no idea what was going on, and the Khmer women who sell the bananas get puzzled and angry at what they saw was the foreigner's attempt to "spoil" their goods. Anyway, if you plan to buy bananas here, just take the whole bunch--it's 1500 riels (30 cents US). And if you cannot finish eating all, give the rest to poor people you meet. Raw turnips being sold by the kilo on the street. They are fresh and crunchy, just like apples! Grilled bananas. They are coated with sugar water and grilled. The outside becomes sticky and hard. I think raw bananas actually taste better. It costs just 500 riels for a stick of three small bananas. These are clams which are "cooked" by baking in the sun on large zinc sheets. You can also get chillied ones. It tastes like the sea, and I could not eat it. It was so funny, my friend from New Zealand and I both spat it out when we tried it at the insistence of a Khmer shopkeeper. Sometimes you see larger shellfish and I've also tried that, but they all have the same salt-water taste. And finally, cotton candy, which I saw on National Road Number 6. It is spun by a small machine and costs 2000 riels (US50 cents) a packet.
I took these photos during the water festival here in Siem Reap. This one is grilled skewered meat, what we call "satay" in Singapore. In Cambodia, the meat is sweetened with sugar and spices. Grilled cuttlefish or squid, which I bought once for 5000 riels. It's chewy. In Singapore, we used to eat Ken Ken Cuttlefish, small packets of grilled cuttlefish from Japan. On the packet was the slogan "The Chewing Gum of the East", that's how chewy it is! The little balls on a string are Cambodian sausages. I've never tried it--I'm scared of sausages in general, and of Cambodian ones in particular! These are grilled small birds. I think they're pigeon, but I am not sure. They could be sparrows--one of our neighbours used to deep-fry sparrows when I was a child in Singapore. The wee birds are coated in the same red colour as the chicken wings shown in this next pic. Chicken wings are my favourite. The wings are tiny, with hardly any meat, but I love the taste nonetheless. Alan is always amazed I can eat chicken wings. In the West, he says, wings are thrown away, because there's no meat on them. We Asians love them--grilled to a crisp and coated with Asian-style BBQ sauce. Yum! The Cambodians are champions at eating chicken wings--absolutely nothing is left, they even eat the bones! The Cambodian "bao" (literally "wrap" in Mandarin) or meat-filled bun. They are very popular back home, and you can get bao anywhere, even at the 7-Eleven, where you can microwave it so it's warm. Here, they are sold by mobile hawkers. Mom and I tried it once, but the meat was a bit dodgy for us. I like char siew bao (sweet BBQ pork meat bun) especially but you can't get it here, except frozen ones from Thailand, which they sell at the supermarkets. "pong moawn ang" or grilled chicken eggs. These are mixed with salt and pepper and grilled. They are delicious and nutritious. All of us at Bloom used to eat them as afternoon snack all the time. It cost only 500 riels (0.125 US cents) back then. I'm sure it is more now, since raw eggs cost 400 riels (10 cents) each at the market now.
