Right, this should be somewhat lighter than the last journal. No apologies for that, certain things have to be said.
Today we’re learning to cook Khmer food. Being honest, Khmer is not a culinary style that is world renowned – many people in western Europe are familiar with Chinese and even Thai food, and some may even have a passing knowledge of Vietnamese food, but Khmer food is relatively unknown. Which is somewhat ironic given that Khmer food has influenced all the major cuisines in the region – Thai, Laos, Vietnamese – from the 13th century. However, we’ve only been in the country for 6 days and we already love the food – it’s tasty, great for veggies, very healthy and unlike most of the other cuisines of the region doesn’t require chillis for flavour (I realise I’ll be shot down for this but there are so many other subtle flavours that sometimes a little chilli-resistance can help!)
The day starts with a trip to the local market. And this is a proper southeast Asian market – we are literally the only westerners around the place and there’s some bemusement with our presence. The place is fantastic – this is truly a seasonal market, we can’t even plan what we’ll be cooking until we’ve seen what’s available as ingredients. It’s also truly fresh – just ask the flailing catfish and the caged free range chicken. The range of ingredients is impressive, but it’s all local and seasonal – we could learn from this in the UK... We pickup what we need and head back to the cookery school.
The school itself is part of a decent restaurant, Frizz, on 240 street. It’s right at the top of the building on a breezy rooftop terrace – a great place to cook. There’s been a slight issue given that we’re both veggies, but it’s readily resolved. The other folks in the group – a couple of Aussie women in their 60s and a guy from NYC around our age – seem pretty cool, and we all get along very well in the class.
It’s probably not wise to go into the detail (hey, we’ve got the recipe book if you’re interested, and we’ll undoubtedly force elements of it on you at some point in the future!) but we work our way through a decent range of recipes – fresh spring rolls, pomelo salad (awesome!), Khmer curry and Amok curry, pumpkin custard and sticky rice with mango – plus accompaniments such as sweet and sour chilli sauce (very easy and very awesome!) A pretty decent day really, we’ve definitely learned a lot.
From there we head back and pack for the bus tomorrow – 07.45 pickup apparently... Tomorrow brings another country and culture, the third in 2 weeks. It’s flying by, but also it feels like we’ve been away a very long time already.
I think we’ve both got mixed feelings about Phnom Penh – on one hand there’s a lot to love about the place, on the other it feels like a city that’s still got to find its feet... It’s certainly very different to every other southeast Asian city we’ve ever been to – it’s decidedly un-westernised, indeed it’s very third-world in many places, and the first and third-world parts seem to co-exist slightly uneasily side-by-side. There’s also a very evident disparity in wealth between the haves and have-nots in PP – without wanting to go into detail there are too many very large expensive (and I mean expensive by western standards – we couldn’t afford them) cars driving past very young playing in fairly squalid conditions. But, it’s a city that’s the centre of a country that’s trying to overcome its horrific recent past, and as such we can forgive it for not being perfect. We both agree that we like the place a lot, though neither of us are sure why. However, what we do agree on is that Cambodia is a genuinely wonderful country and we’ll both definitely be back here in the not too distant future.
