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Published: November 25th 2014
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I have been eating meals at the headquarters office, where cooks fry and steam breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the guests who come to Chi Phat to experience this special place. All the ingredients they must buy fresh daily from the tiny market. Food items are seasonal and vary from day to day. Some days fish is available, some days it is not.
The project here employs several teams of many cooks. The additional income gives them just enough so that their family members do not have to go to the forest to cut trees or hunt animals, thus supporting the goals of the conservation and reforestation project based here. The committee of community members tries hard to distribute the income gaining opportunities among as many people as possible.
We get unusual breakfast items. The fried rice with vegetables is not so strange, but the slices of deep fried baguette is. They serve a squash "spread" with bread. I mistakenly spread some bright orange hot sauce on a piece of morning bread, thinking it was some kind of sweet jam. One evening dinner they made a lobster stew. Not the New England kind, but the river kind.
The
best river lobster dish I had was when I participated in the cooking class. Our recipe sheet said we would be learning to prepare fish amok, the classic Cambodian dish. But the market had no fish. So instead we prepared river lobster amok, from start to eating. We just didn't need to clean up.
Three other travelers from the US--Holly, Brenda, and Sue--and I followed our instructor to the market where we purchased tiny bags of spices, lemon grass, rice, fish sauce, the lobsters, rice, eggs, and a coconut. The first coconut lady used an axe to chop the outer husk off the coconut and open it. It was bad, so we got another and she did it again. Then the opened coconut went to the second coconut lady who reamed out the meat of the coconut with a machine. We carried all the food to the bungalow kitchen out at Butterfly Island, where remodeling of the bungalows and facilities is underway
The "kitchen", we were told, is the most modern in Chi Phat, because it has "running water," a two burner portable range, a supply cupboard, and two solid tables. It's all under a corrugated metal roof,
alfresca style.
Our instructor showed us each step of the time consuming process of creating a delicious dish totally from scratch. This included peeling and cleaning the lobsters--which look like giant prawns--and making coconut milk from the meat of the coconut. We pounded the lemon grass and spices in the heavy mortar and pestle until finally we were taking way too long and our instructor took over. She did all this while watching her two youngsters. She also discovered the pot was not big enough to steam the dish in banana leaves. No worries, we made a stew instead.
The final dish, after over three hours of preparation and cooking, was divine! Beautifully spiced, fresh, fresh, fresh! I'd challenge Gordon Ramsay with this dish any day.
But the food fest did not end there. My third son Savin and his wife Srey Mom created the most delicious lunch today. And of course this was just shortly after eating breakfast and I really wasn't that hungry, but I changed my mind when the food came. Fried fish, chicken and vegetables, steamed rice, fresh fruit. Simple looking dishes, but I know she spent hours on it from start to
finish, just as I had done the day before with the cooking class.
Food is so powerful. It fills our bellies, but it also fills our hearts. I feel so warmly accepted and cared for by my Cambodian family and their generous offerings of delicious food to "Mum" from America. That feeling of being cared for extends beyond the wood slats of their home to all the women of the project who lovingly cook for the dozens of travelers, and to the vendors in the market and all the others who help bring food into our lives.
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Dianne
non-member comment
I can smell the spices!
Hi Terry, Yes, cooking from scratch takes time...I love fresh coconut milk, so delicious. I would like to have a mat like the one you are kneeling on with the young girl only in blue and green! It looks like the ones made in India from recycled plastic. Always fun to connect with the locals.