See The World

with BILL'S EYES

Nothing like the real thing ready to prepare for the evening meal

The simplest things have a beauty that can sometimes be made more appealing

Not sure what this is and do not remember eating it

Dried fish is very popular

Buy six get one spider free.

Just the beginning.

Yummy ants, on everything I presume.

We asked before we took this picture and they seemed very happy to interact with us

Grow your own food then offer to dinners and cooking classes.

Day 3 Cambodia and Vietnam

Lee eating the4 best part of the spider first, or is that frog? She does not seem to care, all good as far as she is concerned..

Presentation 6/10 Taste 9/10

The Residence allows us to rest and relax after a busy day. and in preparation for street food tonight.

Lee' is eager to get on the the cooking.

Every day this woman offers the same small selection of products

We wake for a relatively early breakfast but really should not have had breakfast, as more food awaited us at a cooking class, and the important difference would be that our breakfast was made by a Chef and our later meals would be made by us. 

The driver of a newish SUV draws his vehicle close to the grand entrance of the Residence and the guide who will take us to the cooking class gets out and makes sure we are the intended cooking class attendees. 

The cooking class is supposedly about 15 minutes away, and the guide enthusiastically regales us about the long history of Cambodia. I must confess I was more interested in watching the sides of the roads and streets that we traversed. I observed the change from less busy to more busy traffic. I was struck by the range of food and goods on display in the front of houses near to the footpaths. Only a few shops had what I will call a glass frontage and open door, both of which, if they existed were emblazoned with Western brands and symbols. There were very few shops that had a clean and tidy appearance and fewer that had formal parking outside the shop, and if they did, there was a private guard, making sure only shoppers were able to park there.

Eateries had tables and plastic chairs on the footpath. We passed a formal restaurant or two, but they seemed out of place since they often had vacant blocks next door or the standard of the building next door to the restaurant was less than seemed reasonable for a neighbour of a formal restaurant.

Our cooking class starts with a tour of a food and produce market in Siem Reap. 

As we waited for the other participants of the cooking class to arrive, our guide told us that this particular day was one when water lilies were bought and given to loved ones. 

We stood next to the guide as he explained the folding of the outer leaves of a water lily while the woman selling them took her 100th water lily for the morning and folded away.  The water lily lady handed Lee a water lily, and then Lee deftly folded the five outer leaves.  

Then I had a turn. 

Not bad for first timers as they turned out OK. 

I did note however that during our time with the water lily lady the river we were standing next to occasionally smelt very off. No one else seemed to mind, and so a long-past Cambodian Kings' attempt to make the equivalent of a Grand River in Siem Reap was not as successful to-date as he had hoped. 

We thanked the water lily lady with a US dollar and a smile, and she gave us a friendly smile in return. I must confess that all the Cambodian people that we had the absolute pleasure to meet were very pleasant and welcoming.

Then the rest of the cooking class participants turned up - a group of 7 New Zealanders who had been cycling about Cambodia for the past week. We were soon chatting and were then off the market but only after traversing across a very busy road. 

The high roofed building of the local market contained 40 to 50 stalls comprising platforms raised off the surface of the concrete and dirt floor just about a meter. 

The stalls were arrayed in rows with enough room for people to walk between them so they could see, feel and in some cases sit down (on very small stools) and taste, the fresh and cooked goods on offer. 

Mothers and their children seemed to be enjoying breakfast while the market hustle and bustle went on about them. 

Our first taste of local food from the market was a coconut paste with crushed peanuts. The paste was encased in a square open top box-like structure, formed out of a folded palm leaf. The sweetness of its taste was the result of the palm sugar in the mixture, something that we would taste again often, as palm sugar is a staple ingredient in Cambodian food and something we would later see being harvested by an agile 67-year old gentleman. 

The market stalls offering their particular goods are in most cases are a flat slightly raised platform. The seller of the goods sits cross-legged on the stall pushing and prodding their wares into piles or rearranging the fish, chicken, or Quayle carcasses, or the pig innards, or the chicken feet, or the chicken blood available in a convenient cake-like shape, or Chicken innards, or just boring old fruits and vegetables. 

This market seems well patronized, and we have made the crowd bigger for the short time we are wondering about, but we did not add much in the way of trade.

The market tour ends, and we are driven beyond the suburbs to where the cooking school was co-located with hotel lodging and unusually the front garden to the lodging and co-located restaurant is a herb and vegetable garden. Seems logical but still unusual.  

The cooking class is held in a sun shelter formed by a single solid rear wall and openings to the surroundings all about us. Nine tables are ready for our group with a further 12 tables ready for another group who arrive soon after us. 

Arrayed on our table are all the required cooking elements, including a mixing bowl, a food bowl, a big chopping knife, a chopping board, and an array of small bowls containing condiments including, palm sugar, garlic, fish sauce, white sugar, mango, salt, dried shallots, cafa lime leaves, basil, chilli, dried fish and secret ingredient paste. Of course, there was the apron and the chef hat, which stayed on for the photographs but the hat soon came off, as it was hot, hot, hot.

The instructing chef was knowledgeable and added much humour to the cooking class. 

He started with the making of a cold roll. First, the dipping sauce was made with some of the ingredients as instructed. Luckily we will get a cooking class recipe book afterwards. Slicing the provided vegetables and wetting the rice paper, then placing the vegetables into the rice paper and rolling as instructed took all my attention and concentration, as no matter how easy it may seem, cooking is not my thing. 

Very fortunate for me Lee loves cooking. My cold roll looked short and dumpy while Lee's looked sleek and much more edible than mine. It turned out mine was edible as well, as long as I bathed it in the dipping sauce.

Then on to the fish soup involving the use of a small gas burner and a pot of supplied stock and adding other ingredients from our array (trying not to put in plain sugar instead of salt). I ate the soup I had made but without the fish. Tasted good to me and smelt OK as well.  The chef encouraged us to feel the ingredients and smell the combinations of food we were creating. 

Next on the cooking class menu was Fish Amok, a very traditional Cambodian dish that is very tasty when we have had it at a restaurant. The frying pan is soon hot, and the ingredients are being added quickly as it seems you do not want to over-cook the concoction. Out of the pan, on to our plate and down the hatch. 

Tasted good to me and satisfying to have made the lot myself, even if the cooking class Chef, was literally spoon-feeding us how to make it.

We then made a sweet dessert consisting of separately soaked Tapioca pearls and Mung beans, bananas boiled in water to which was added the soaked pearls and beans and adding palm sugar and coconut milk then simmering for some minutes. Best consumed cold with some ice – which went down a treat as the heat of the day was permeating the open classroom.

A certificate of accomplishment (or is that notice of not getting food poisoning or sick from your own cooking) was awarded to us all.

A return to our room and ou rest at the residence is soon over, and we are off for more foodie delights on an evening street food tour.  Rorth takes us in his Tuk-Tuk via the busy roads carefully steering through intersections that are apparently not first come is first through, but all together let's cross all at the same time and just work it out. Seems to work.

We end up at the largest food market in Siem Reap, and the tour guide Kim (since his real name is unpronounceable) has a toothy grin and big smile and is ready to make sure our small group of seven people enjoy their evening. 

We find out that in our group there is another Australian couple, a mother and daughter from South African, and a young guy from the UK. Interesting that the heritage of our group includes Fijian and Pakistani. 

We are all there to experience street food that is Cambodia style and learn more about its culture.

We begin by being supplied some cooked fish which hopefully was caught recently from the Great Lake Tonle Sap some kilometres away. 

I do not typically like fish but in the spirit of the evening I tasted a small portion, and it was not what I would call fishy nor did my portion have bones, so I had some more. Then on to some coconut cake. Then some fruit which needed to be opened and the soft centre eaten, I think that fruit was a loquat followed by some fresh mango and a very small but extra tasty banana was soon polished off as well. 

Durian was offered and refused by me, but others had some. The smell of the outside and the inside of the fruit is very off-putting, so I can only imagine the taste, but surprisingly the others thought it was fine to taste and also interesting since the tables would turn later in the evening when Lee and I would be tasting what the others could not.

Then into our Tuk-Tuks and through the busy evening traffic out to a picnic area. The locals love to eat out as a family and with other families. The area we are taken to is called 60-meter road (because it is 60 meters wide) and where the sides of the roads have been prepared for the visiting families by the laying out of rattan mats and the building of raised wooden platforms. All was ready for the families to plonk down, while Mum or Dad leaves and gets food from the hundred or so food vendors who have set up during the day, ready for the hungry hordes to arrive.

The variety of food on display is mind-blowing. We first sit down at what is the exception of the eating arrangement offerings, as there are tables and chairs under a tent. The sun has set, and there are plenty of lights. Our first dish is fried red ants. I have a taste but then learn we are meant to sprinkle them on the food yet to be served. Yum - can't wait.  BBQ Beef and chicken is placed on the table with some raw vegetables. We have been warned not to eat uncooked vegetables and so steer clear of them, but the beef and some local sauce with a sprinkling of red ants are preety good.  

Then we are off to survey the rest of the food on offer. Whole chickens, whole fish, whole frogs, whole quale, and whole 'I am not sure what it is' are ready cooked and ready to eat from the sticks they were cooked on.  They each cost about 2 US dollars.  

Next on the possible menu are roasted tarantula, silkworm, cricket, snail, and frog, all available from the same stall.  The young woman standing behind the piles of delicacies casually piles tarantula into a plastic bag and passes it on to another young woman who smiles as she pays for dinner. All seems so natural.

Well if they can do it so can we... Maybe.   Maybe not... 

However, Lee is determined to give it a go. First on the menu is a tarantula. I began video recording the event, which it has become, as a gaggle of Japanese tourists stop next to Lee as soon as they realize that she is about to consume some crispy fried tarantula. 

Her first bite is normal enough, and her expression as the taste buds take over does not change. Her chewing is less enthusiastic since it seems that the taste is not that pleasant, but she is determined to finish the whole creature, so the first bite must be consigned to the stomach via the fervent mastication of the teeth. It seems she has bitten the thorax (stomach) of the creature first on the recommendation of the tour guide who is busy chewing his tarantula. All free on this tour if you are game. 

Soon she has finished off the rest of the creature, and I follow with my bite of the legs first. I think the legs will be the easiest to bite and then I follow up with a bite of the abdomen. Never thought I would do that since I very much dislike spiders, but hey, this is my opportunity to get back on them. Unfortunately, the spider I have just partially consumed cannot get word to the rest of the living spiders of the world, that they need to be extra wary of me, and they should all never darken my doorstep.

Lee continues her quest to consume more protein in the form of a silkworm, a cricket, snail and last but deliciously last, a frog.

We share notes on the tarantula, and we both agree that they will not form part of our diet in the future...too dry.

Enough of the fancy food for tonight. Back to the residence and wait for the reaction in the morning to our foray of this evening.  

The certainly look the part.

We are ready but we need to be told what goes with what - or at least I need to be told.

Spiders, snails, silk, worms, frog, and cricket - what every supermarket should stock.