Phnomenon: food in Cambodia

Cheers to Christopher Shay for the interview.

Paddy-licious
Ask anyone in Asia who grows the best rice and the answer is inevitably the nation of origin of the person questioned. In Cambodia, it’s likely to be an exact village of origin at a specific date. There is no room for objectivity because the rice harvest is chained to the national identity of every […]

“Largely, media coverage focuses on less representative Khmer foods like spiders, as well as being covered by journalists who have never before eaten Khmer food and have no real drive to discover more about it once they have filed their spider story. Serious food journalists don’t come here.
So whinges me, in an Asia Sentinel article […]

When a liquor store owner beats up a robber with a bottle, it fills that valuable column space for any local newshound. When a bottle of Cambodian fish sauce is involved, prepare for syndication. The Eagle Tribune is there.
“I just grabbed him tight and held the gun down,” Vannarith, a Lowell resident, said in […]

For a few people that follow the global Khmer diaspora or posthumously stalk Jack Kerouac, Lowell in Massachusetts is one of the few hubs. The Boston Globe, in its coverage of the Lowell Folk Festival has picked up on the trend and published a diminutive article on the local Khmer food options. Their picks:

Locals recommend […]

The Nehru jacket. The jacket so nice that they named a Pacific island after it. The crisp battle armour of Third World service staff. Beige. The person inside it greets you in a characterless patter that suggests you’ve arrived in a non-place, a refuge from whichever city the hotel is located. It is a garment […]

“It’s like people who go hunting for deer,” Radoski says, predicting how the snakehead will change the game for the Potomac’s anglers. “And then you find a carnivorous, fanged deer that’s hopping through the woods.”
That would be just like finding a bear. The Washington Post catches snakehead fever and regales us with tales of capturing […]

Suesdei tngai trei!
The first of July in Cambodia was World Fish Day. I somehow missed it, despite having a huge banner draped across a street near my house saying “Place save fish resources for Cambodian future”, which would have been much more apt if the first word had been “plaice“.
Maytel at Gut Feelings […]

In short, no.

In New York, transplanted Hong Kong hands have a couple of Chinatowns to choose from. Colombians can head out to Queens for an oblea caramel wafer and yucca bread under the elevated train tracks. Eastern Europeans longing for a borscht can ride the F train to Brighton Beach. West Africans have the Bronx, […]

Thanks for emailing about the plane crash near Kampot, but thankfully, I was not involved in it. I’m too cheap to fly between Sihanoukville and Siem Reap.
I made it to Kampot safely and my only risk now is a fatal crab-and-pepper overdose.