Diets around the world
I’m still away on holiday at the boyfriend’s father and mother dears’ house, so my father dear agreed (after much pestering on my part :D) to write a guest post for all of you! He’s guest-blogged for me before so I thought it would be nice if he re-visited the blog. He was quite happy to do so. Here’s his thoughts on diets around the world:
Cambodian Cuisine
I think the majority of these trays hold snacks of fried insects. Mmmm.
During the holiday season food always forms a large part of our activities and conversation. For this guest blog I will stick with a food theme but go to an area of the world that doesn’t figure much in our “western” celebration of the holiday season… so for a few minutes you can put aside your thoughts of turkey, mashed potatoes, and mince meat tarts!
For the past two years I have worked with the United Nations in Cambodia, spending a lot of my time “in the field” with local Cambodian colleagues. Aside from the work and cultural interests, it has been a culinary adventure. I present a few cases for example that occurred while eating in open-air Cambodian food stalls/restaurants in the countryside:
- I am slurping down some delicious lime-flavoured broth from a bowl when I see a mysterious looking dense dark slice of meat (?) in the bowl. I ask my interpreter what it is and he replies, “It looks like a slice of pancreas to me”…
- I am spooning down another delicious broth on another occasion and this time see a crimson coloured lump at the bottom of my bowl. I ask my interpreter what is is and he replies, “Chicken blood”…
- While driving down the highway we pull over to the side of the road for two of my colleagues to pick up some food at some roadside stands. They return with a couple of very large deepfried spiders, a small plastic bag of fried crickets and a few boiled eggs that contain formed chicken foetus’ to snack on along the way…
- While working in a small village a local woman prepares lunch for us. Again, we are given fish soup which is delicious, but in Cambodian fashion an entire gutted fish is stewing in the bowl with head, skin, and bones floating in the broth…
- The village woman puts a bowl of fermented “prahok” (fish paste) to gauge my reaction and she laughs at my response which is to almost retch at the foul smell. Prahok flavours many Cambodian dishes but you wouldn’t know it was the same food after it is mixed with the different dishes. It is sometimes referred to as “Cambodian Cheese” because it gets the same visceral response as that when smelling a strong blue cheese. In fact, many of the Cambodians I know have the same response to cheese that I did to prahok as cheese does not form a part of their diet.
Yes, most of those fish are still moving. Including the ones that are chopped in half.
The whole experience has led me to think about diet and how we judge others by what they eat. I know of westerners who would question why they eat those things but I have heard that the spiders, for instance, supply protein. Similarly presumably stewing the entire fish in the soup would provide nutrients that might not be otherwise available.
One time while checking out a roadside food market, a freshly slaughtered turtle was on display, its bottom belly plate removed to display “tasty” turtle organs for consumption. It looked pretty awful to me but in reflection I thought – this isn’t much different from me eating bacon-wrapped chicken livers or fried beef liver and onions, both of which I love!
I can’t eat a lot of the food that my colleagues do but at least we can enjoy talking together about our different diets.
Anyway, I will be returning to Cambodia in a couple of weeks to see the prahok etc., so for now I think I will live in the “here and now” and get out to the store to pick up a Christmas turkey, potatoes, and all the rest of it.
Have a great holiday season!
Thanks for your article, father dear 🙂
Question: What kind of interesting food experiences have you had? Have you ever eaten something without thinking about (or knowing!) what it really is? Have you ever felt judged by someone else based on your food choices? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
*All photos taken from when I visited the father dear in Cambodia in May 2008.
Thanks for this interesting article! I’ve eaten some interesting things from Scandinavia to South Africa. Liked all of it 🙂
It’s so much fun trying new foods 🙂
Very interesting peek into a very different food culture. And to think that I caught flak for using black beans instead of green peas in my holiday bean salad. Too strange, said a couple of family members. I think I’ll show them this article and ask them again if they’d like to try the black beans. 🙂
Ha! Do 😀
A great perspective during this time of “abundance” which we take so much for granted. It’s long been forgotten by westerners that the primary purpose of food is for sustenance and energy, not for flavor and indulgence. The foods I appreciate the most, are the foods which are most handy when I most need them. “Need”, now there’s and interesting motivation to eat 🙂
No kidding. It’s a very unusual motivation to use in our society, too. Which is especially sad.
I have a picky tongue, so I am not the most adventurous eater, but I love watching and reading about others eating adventurously. I’m not a fan of fish, for example, but I can think of little better than going to a sushi bar and watching my husband fearlessly eat anything that is placed in front of him. 🙂 While we lived in Louisiana, I did eat a few things that might give people pause. My Cajun coworkers let me sample hogs head cheese and boudin (a Cajun sausage made with who knows what) – both were very tasty.
It is really wonderful to see the food adventures that others experience!
Interesting! I am not one to try stuff like this & can’t even watch those shows On FoodNetwork that show those couple guys eating the crazy stuff. Admiration for those of you that try & do that humanitarian work!
I’ve tasted so many unusual dishes in my life. There are some that I enjoyed and continued eating, there are some that I appreciated but never touched again, and of course, there are those that made me retch just by looking at them. I’ve had chicken and pork intestines, pork blood, frog legs, snails, beetles and many others and I’ve tried them cooked in many different ways, too. It’s amazing how people make the most out of these weird and unconventional foods.