Cambodia: Part 1: The Food

The third country I visited on my tour-o-Asia was Cambodia. I loved it and have lots more photos to come....this first post is food-themed because I ate a LOT of great and of-questionable-hygienic-quality food while there.

To begin, I met up with the group of Cambodian students from Asian University for Women in Phnom Penh. Here's a shot of all of us out at dinner:
And here's a shot of some of the food from that dinner--there was squid, beef, tomyam (spicy seafood soup), rice (of course) steamed clams, sweet-and-sour seafood, and more!
The next photos are a series from a local market where I went to with the students in Sihanoukville, a city in the southern part of the country on the ocean. We got bags of picnic food for lunch here.

First, the fruit stalls:
The first photo contains (beginning with the bananas and moving counter-clockwise) banana, mangosteen, some sort of palm fruit, durian. The table contains mystery packages wrapped in banana leaf, garlic, etc.

The next photo contains, (beginning with the green bananas hanging in the upper right corner and moving clockwise), green banana, pears, green mango, ripe mango, dragon fruit, rambutan, oranges, grapes). There pineapples, bananas and other fruit in the background..... The next is a shot of the "dessert" stall where we bought sweets for after lunch. I have no idea what any of this stuff is, but it involved blakck-eyed peas, rice, mystery fruit, and other completely unknown food items. The students asked what i liked but I didn't know what any of it was, so I asked for something coconut-flavored. They said "everything contains coconut" so it didn't really narrow down the choices.....
The next is some women cooking breads/pastries with coals:
And the next is where we got the majority of our lunch food--random bowls of weird and mysterious food....all sitting out without refrigeration and with flies, etc. hovering.....thank god I have an iron stomach! It was all very tasty despite the fact I don't know what most of it was.....
And here's a shot of our lunch with the hot food we ordered to go with the 'picnic' food from above. The soup in the middle with the coal-fired pot was SO TASTY--tons of lemongrass and some other strange spice I couldn't put my finger on.....also bits of chicken that most Americans wouldn't go near.
Here's another shot of the market with a lot of fresh seafood--crabs, oysters, clams and the accessories (chili sauce, limes and salt).

Here's a shot of a woman at a street market selling some leaf-wrapped mystery items (I think they were rice-based sweet jellies) and durians.
Durians are everywhere in south Asia and have a notorious reputation. They do smell somewhat "bad" but I don't find it so offensive. Their taste is like an overripe, sweet slightly rotting fruit, not awesome, but not terrible....they have durian-flavored everything! Candy, drinks, chocolate, etc.

There was also lots of fresh fruit available on the street. I love the way they cut pineapples--slice off the skin , then cut out the "eyes" in a spiral pattern all the way around--very little waste and no hard un-chewable parts that get caught in your teeth! This photo is of a standard roadside stand where I bought a whole, peeled, cut pineapple for 25cents. The guy on the right was a Japanese tourist curious about their methods......
And the next one is of the sacred lotus flower, which is so beautiful when blooming and also contains a tasty nut (in addition to an edible root)!
And finally, they eat a LOT of various insects and arachnids in Cambodia--this last one (so I didn't ruin your appetite for the other photos) is of a bowl of some crunchy insect for sale on the street: