Phnomenon: food in Cambodia

When Odysseus arrived at the island of the lotus eaters, he sent three men ashore to report on the locals. The men promptly got stuck into the lotus fruit, forgot their mission and desire to return home, and eventually had to dragged screaming back to the ship. Unafraid of the tales of Homer, I’ve been meaning to try some of these lotus heads ever since I’ve seen vendors balancing them on their heads down on the riverfront but never really knew how to open the things up and feast on the goo inside. Over the weekend, I ran into one of my work colleagues, a confessed lotus-eater, and he showed me how.

Firstly, acquire yourself a few lotus heads (1000 riel for three)

Secondly, remove the seed pod from the shower head and remove the outer green casing to reveal the white innards.

Lastly, eat the white part. It tastes like slightly astringent snow peas and is probably one of the lowest yielding snacks around.

Show On Map. This entry was posted on Monday, February 6th, 2006 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Street food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.