We spent 3 nights there… unfortunately during our stay both Andrew and I developed a cold. Since there wasn’t too much to do in the town, we had a good opportunity to rest and get better. Note… Asia is not a country where colds are taken too lightly. Every day we see people wearing medical masks while just walking down the streets.
Cooking in Cambodia and the local market experience:
On our second day we took a Cambodian cooking class. We met at the school early in the morning to meet each other and the teacher. We learned that we would be cooking 3 traditional dishes and would be going to the market together to buy all the ingredients needed for the dishes. The local open market was only a few minutes away on foot… let’s just say the experience is something we will never forget. For those of you that don’t know… an Asian market is nothing like going to a market at home. You can literally buy anything there!!! The first part of our market trip was pretty tame we bought spices and vegetables that were necessary for the dishes. Our teacher explained and pointed out some of the fresh spices and veggies that we had never heard of. One of our dishes called for fish, our teacher said we needed to buy a firm type of fish. We bought a few live snake cat fishes from a lady that had them in a basket. She also had eels and other types of fish… all twitching around in baskets. Our next dish would require beef or shrimp. We entered deeper into the market to the section where the meat lay out on make shift tables. You could get literally buy any piece of meat that you wanted, from feet to head. We all oohed and awed over the weird cuts that we saw. Our teacher bought a piece of loin and demonstrated to us how to tell if the meat would be fresh or tough.
I must say, ordinarily at home the idea of buying meat or seafood that is open to the elements without refridgeration with flies buzzing everywhere would be a definite “red flag”. But here in Cambodia that is how food is bought whether you buy it, or a restaurant cooks it for you to eat. Sometimes I think… are we just overly sensitive at home??? Why do people at home waste so much when people here eat every part imaginable of the animal. I don't know the answer....I guess it's what you grown accustomed to.
Our teacher explained to us that every day the meat is butchered fresh 1-2 times per day. What meat is left over at the end of the night is either dried or turned into sausages.
Other things that we saw in the market were barely alive chickens (moving but lying in piles), live turtles (for eating), skinned frogs, eels, any type of egg (different shapes and colours), all types of seafood and shellfish and anything that you can imagine “dried”.
We walked back to the school to start cooking our food. Everything we made was fresh, we even made our own coconut milk and chilli paste. We did all of our prepping of food outside on a table then did the actual cooking under a roof. It was a very hot day and after an entire morning of cooking we were all dripping with sweat.
Here is a list of the dishes that we made:
Fish Amok- cat fish in coconut curry type sauce
Beef Lok Lak- spiced beef on salad
Chicken stir fry
The best part of the day was getting the opportunity to eat the food… I can say that I have never cooked something so yummy in my life!!! I definitely have learned a few techniques from that class, and I hope to take another cooking class again during this trip.
As mentioned before, the people in Asia seem to be very afraid to catching anything remotely close the flu. After our 3 nights in Battambang it was time to move onwards. We took a 5 hr. bus ride back to Phnom Penh, fortunately we were both feeling much better. Andrew still had a bit of a cough mixed with a runny nose from allergies. The bus we took was a local bus, every time Andrew would sniffle or cough people would hold their breath or cover their faces with their t shirts. It was quite strange, felt like we were harbouring some sort of awful disease.
Click on album below to see pictures in picasa
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| Battambang, Cambodia |
~Nicola
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