mandevu.net

I really enjoy breakfast in Cambodia. In fact, it might even be my favorite meal of the day. As you may already know, breakfast here is not like the breakfast which I grew up with back in the US. I am sure that more seasoned hands could better parse up the situation, but I see breakfast foods falling into two families, wet and dry: as in soups (generally with noodles or rice), and the meat/rice dishes. I go through phases– sometimes I am all about the pork and noodle soup. Sometimes not. A while ago, I discovered my current favorite: chicken and rice (and no, I am not going to attempt an English transliteration of the Khmer name– they never really work well).

First, an orientation to the table. The guest of honor is, of course, at the center of it all. However, with the meat and rice dishes (pork is the other common variant), you also get a little bowl of clear broth, some tasty, spicy and garlicky sauce and a little portion of pickled vegetables (one of my favorite accompaniments to any meal, actually). These are added to the usual cast of characters which include a magazine of condiments (chili, pickled garlic, black pepper), sugar, soy sauce and little fried dough lovlies. I put these guys to use in my soups, depending upon my mood. With the chicken and rice, I work with the kit presented to me as it is pretty well rounded, and serves my purposes well. You might also note the iced coffee and the pink cup. The coffee is, of course, the critical morning headache prevention remedy. And the pink cup contains the really hot water, in which are soaking your fork and spoon so that they will be clean and ready to go as soon as you are.

I have been frequenting the same place around the corner from where I am staying (Kiri Restaurant on Street 294, near Street 21 and the Philippine Embassy, for you local folks). The plate has been pretty uniform: pile of chickeny-flavor yellow rice, chicken meat assemblage (which includes meat bits with minimal bones, 1/2 a liver, 1/2 a wing and a slab of gizzard), sliced green tomatoes and sliced cucumber. What I have noticed about this arrangement is that they are sort of modular– there is a meat unit, a rice unit and a vegetable unit (which includes the pickles). The beauty of it is that these three modules taste great in combination. So I find myself doing a lot of strategizing about how I am going to have the right balance of meat, rice and veggies in each bite. And it works! Every bite tasty and delicious, and with a little control (as in, resisting the urge to eat all the pickles at once!), everything goes according to plan, so I am seldom left with orphaned rice on the plate. Though even that is welcome, especially with the spicy and garlicky sauce! I am not sure what all this says about me, but the food is delightful!

Some years back, when I was in high school, I worked as a bus boy at a bustling seafood restaurant in a little tourist town on the coast. One of the managers, (an interesting lady: just shy of 5 feet tall, competitive body builder, got way too much sun and had done so for years, plus smoked like 2 packs of cigarettes a day) had a really peculiar way of eating her chowder. Instead of dumping all of the crackers in all at once (my then, as now, preferred technique for chowder-cracker integration– which I considered the norm at the time), she would add exactly one oyster cracker to each individual spoonful of chowder as she delivered it to her mouth. In my youthful hubris, I scoffed at her methods. She patiently explained to me (because she was really nice) that the reason she used this method was to ensure the proper ratio of cracker to chowder in every bite. Her explanation, while thoughtful, taught me little and I still just thought that she was a weirdo. Now maybe 10 years later, I find myself doing essentially the same thing. And it is not that bad a strategy, as long as your friends don’t mind waiting for your slow-eating ass once they’ve all finished, and it is time to get going!

If you are interested in reading more about food here in Cambodia, I encourage you to check out Phnomenon. He has done some brilliant work with maps and street-food (two of my favorite things in the world). And maybe I’ll write some more myself, if I come up with something useful.

Updated (17 March 2007): Over at Phnomenon, a more seasoned hand has indeed parsed up the Cambodian breakfast situation, and written up a much more foodie (and much less psycho-personal) article on pork and rice– another Khmer breakfast delight. Check it out.