In Awe of the Atlas

Nary’s Kitchen

The percussive sound of cooking makes me feel as if we’re making music, not food. The thrum of Nary’s hot plate as it comes to life. The pop of heating oil, the thwack of my knife mincing the turmeric that turns my fingertips to gold. Above it all, Nary, my culinary mentor, hums a tune as sweet as the mango flesh she plucks like a thousand-stringed instrument.

I’m in Nary’s kitchen, but it’s her husband, Mr. Toot, who has brought me here. Battambang: where Champa leaves meet the beautifully decomposing bones of so many French colonial facades. Fellow travelers insist this is the best city in Cambodia to learn about Khmer cooking. Locals insist Mr. Toot’s cooking school is the place to study.

Earlier, Mr. Toot and I met in front of the Battambang market for an hour’s synesthesia: the ear-busting sight of saffron and curry powder, the blinding taste of lime juice on lips. Shy Mr. Toot adorned my fingers with bags of lemongrass and eel, the lone man amongst a blitz of bright-skirted women. Leaving, I felt his narrow shoulders relax as he said, “I get embarrassed I am the only man. But it’s for my business, you know?”

I hardly know. Mr. Toot, I come to learn, lost many family members to the violent insanity of Pol Pot’s regime. He escaped to Battambang, eventually saving enough money to open a cooking school with his wife. They have two sons, a two-room home, and enough food to eat. They are, as they repeat like a supplication, the lucky ones.

In the cool of their clay-walled kitchen, I'm the lucky one. Nary is teaching me the proper way to fold a banana leaf, which will house a succulent curry. My fingers fumble and I marvel at Nary’s handiwork: in only three pinches, she has a perfect bowl. It takes me six tries to make my own, and by then we're ready to eat.

The beef lok lak is tender. The fish amok velvety on the tongue. Across the table, I see Mr. Toot smile before taking a bite of the food that gives his family more than one reason to live.