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Our Country: Culture: Food
Cambodian food is similar to Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese food, with lots of rice, noodles, salads and spicy soups. In the cities, the French influence is also obvious. Long sticks of French bread are a common sight, and French pastries and frogs' legs are popular. Families have their main meal at lunchtime. It usually includes soup, which they eat at the same time as the main course of rice, vegetables and fish or meat. People eat with a spoon and fork, with their fingers or with chopsticks. Cambodians eat rice at almost every meal, either steamed, fried or as noodles. Rice flour is a useful ingredient in cakes and pastries. The next most important food is fish, which people eat fresh, dried, smoked or fermented into fish sauce or paste (called prahok). When they can afford it, people also eat chicken, pork and beef. The most common flavourings are ginger, lemongrass, chilli and mint. Cambodians love desserts, which they make from fruit or rice, often cooked in coconut milk, with palm sugar for sweetness and flavour. 
RiceRice is so important to Cambodians that they have over 100 words for it in their language. Most people eat it several times a day. For poor families, rice may be their only food most days, and an adult might eat as much as four cups at one meal. Cambodians have been growing rice for over 2000 years. In that time, farmers have developed hundreds of different strains, which grow in different conditions. There are strains that grow in deep water and others that can grow in the dry season; some that grow best in the highlands and others that flourish in the lowlands; some whose grains stay separate when they are cooked and others that produce sticky rice. Farmers choose the best strain for their land, for the amount of water they have, and for the time of year. 
PrahokPrahok is a strong-flavoured fish paste that people eat with rice. This is how it is made:
The Sugar Palm Tree The sugar palm tree looks very like a coconut palm, but it is even taller. Cambodians use many different parts of the sugar palm. 
Making Palm SugarPalm sugar comes from the sap of the sugar palm. It is the men's job to collect the sap. In the late afternoon, they use long bamboo poles to climb the trees. When they reach the top, they use a sharp knife to cut into the stems that hold the fruit and flowers. Then they tie a bamboo container under the cut and leave it there overnight to collect the sap. In the morning they climb the trees again to gather the bamboo containers full of sap. 
The sap is good to drink fresh from the tree, but the villagers use most of it to make palm sugar, vinegar or wine. To make palm sugar, the women pour the sap into a huge pan and cook it for several hours, stirring all the time. When it is very thick, they take it off the heat and stir it with flat wooden sticks until it is completely solid.
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copyright worldvision 2003
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