Rice rice baby.

Now that I've moved on to Vietnam, its time for my Cambodia food post. I'll start this off with one word: rice. Rice for breakfast. Rice for lunch. Rice for dinner. And, just like Thailand, there was always some sort of basic fried rice available to tourists who didn't feel like eating anything else. I also found that there are fried noodles, which included the same components as fried rice, but substitute instant ramen noodles for the rice.

Cambodian food is much simpler than Thai food and nowhere near as spicy. It focuses much more on what's in season and it usually appears in some sort of soup or stir fry that accompanies rice. For two weeks I got to eat with the Khmer family who runs the school I was volunteering with. When the director found out that I am not much of a cook, he started sending me to join his wife with the food prep and cooking. Essentially, I cut vegetables and watched his wife work her magic.

This is what dinner looked like most nights. 2yo girl sitting still was optional

It seemed like all meals had a few things in common: pepper, salt, garlic, onions and seasoning. When they first said seasoning I thought they just meant spices in general. Quickly I realized they were talking about one specific crystal that I have since discovered is MSG. Another thing I noted quickly is that it doesn't matter if the meat has bones or not. It gets chopped up into pieces with the bones and its the eater's responsibility to deal with them in each bite. They didn't really seem phased in the least by thing like fish bones, while in the back of my head I can't help but think "don't choke on one of these and die."

Cambodian 'cake' and Fanta

Watermelon, pineapple, papaya and mango appear to be the main fruits consumed in Cambodia. Both mango and papaya are used when they are green. One of my favorite dishes used grated green papaya and carrot to make a papaya salad. Another grated up some yellower mangoes with some seasoning and chili salt. Put this over rice and its super tasty.

Mango with chili sauce for dipping

Amok is the traditional Khmer dish that everyone tells you to try. Its a special curry that's served in a banana leaf bowl if you order it at a nice restaurant. It's also what I learned to cook when we took a cooking class. I'll get the recipe up here at some point, but to be totally honest it wasn't one of the favorite things I have eaten.

One of the more interesting things that I encountered was called prahok. When they found out that I was missing cheese, the director said "Oh we have something like that!" I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up but when he brought out the fermented fish paste (prahok) I was a bit surprised. It is definitely a weird tangy fishy taste and I ate my tiny bites of prahok with massive bites of rice. The only other super odd thing that I ate was a mango salad that seemed to include grated mangos mixed with medium-sized fish that were canned in tomato sauce.

I don't have pictures of all my meals, and I am not really sure what exactly is in all of them so this is my best guess. Here goes anyways though:

Fish, grated mango salad, watermelon

Sour soup: palm nut and fish

Veggie stir fry

Stir-fried long beans (really similar to green bean)

They called this turnip. Its not the same as American turnip, and tasted like it had been pickled or something

Shells!! One of my favorite things. Chili oil on the outside, yummy raw shellfish on the inside.

Veggies, boiled green papaya, watermelon and prahok (the paste in the bottom left)

Rice, grilled fish, green tomato and tarot soup

Fried fish 

Ginger-lemongrass chicken

"Why are the bones of this chicken so tiny?" "Oh because its frog not chicken."

Yoga retreat: vegan gluten free waffles with palm sugar, raisins, coconut, peanuts and fruit

Fried crab fresh out of the ocean and onto my plate.

That is a stout poured over ice and served with a straw.

Not really Cambodian, but amazing dumplings!

Grilled shrimp

Grilled squid

Lotus! Each of those little circles was a bean really similar to an edamame

Fried instant noodles with an egg

Pork pineapple and potato

Yellow curry with chicken

Sorry I am so far behind with posts. The internet in Vietnam seems to be horrible everywhere I go, so its a real pain to do anything with pictures involved.