Khmer cookbooks, our review

The must-haves, our favorites and the not-enough-prahok

I am puzzled with a $700 meal for two people when it comes to Cambodian, Lao or Thai food. I almost feel it is an insult to the simplicity of the people, how they live, how they cook, how they forage to put enough protein on the table. I still remember the stalls in Samneua, Houaphanh (Laos): the birds, the rats, the racoons, the worms from the bamboos and other insects. It was not so much that they liked to eat exotic and wildlife. It was just that they did not have enough to eat. There were also these retreat days at the forest pagoda outside Pakse, with blanched young mango leaves only seasoned with padaek / prahok¹ fermented fish. The monks and nuns did not have anything else.

Some of the Khmer cookbooks in our kitchen

Food critics and snobs elevate our food so it can be justified to charge $700 a meal. I would like them to spare me from the spiel of safeguarding Khmer cuisine. Just look at the fresh markets, family meals or the vivacity of the Khmer Chef Association² or the Cambodian Restaurants Association³. Plenty of chef profiles are provided here and there. When NOMA, “the best restaurant in the world” is closing because haute cuisine is not sustainable, and Bourdain celebrated everyday food, how can we still encourage a cuisine for the elite, the jetsetters?

I have always liked street food, the stalls and modest sellers from the streets of Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Nongkai, Vientiane, Thakkhek, Paksé or Phnom Penh, Kompong Luang, Hanoi, Travinh or Saigon. They have educated my taste and I know when I have succeeded in preparing a dish when it is close enough to what I have bought for a dollar or two. Over time, we have accumulated enough cookbooks of Thai, Lao and Cambodian cookbooks. They were informed by our cookbooks on French, Indian, Bangladeshi, Italian, American, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Philippines, Moroccan, Lebanese and so much more cuisine. Because it helps understand the various influences on our cuisine and recognize how we adapted to our taste and local resources.

Look at the ‘kroeung’ that is at the center of Khmer food or the Kari Saraman, elected as a national dish. It suffices to read the books dedicated to curries around the world to know that the ‘kroeung’ is a version of a curry paste⁴ and that the Kari Saraman is the national dish of other countries too, including neighboring Thailand and Malaysia (beef rendang)⁵.

As Nadia Boulanger said, “to study music, we must learn the rules, to create music we must break them”.  I think it is the same for cooking. Know your basics, be humble and enjoy the food. If you are looking for Khmer cookbooks, here are some we have in our kitchen and a nearby national library. There are some that provides ethnological and general knowledge about our cuisine; those that we use everyday, our favorites; those that ‘lack prahok’, too bland to our taste or an à-peu-près.

REFERENCES, THE MUST-HAVES !

Some references to cook better

Some books are a wealth of knowledge, not only about the food but the customs and how Khmer people live. The book from Ang Choulean is enlightening and provides authentic recipes of staple food of Cambodia. If there is only one book to have in the house, that’s this one, from an ethnological perspective (only in Khmer and French)⁶.

The work of Alan Davidson on fishes and seafood of Southeast Asia informs which fish is used in which dishes. Many cookbooks are short of indicating what type of fish is used in a recipe, but families will tell you to use a firmer fish like the mackerel scad or trey sanday (wallago attu / freshwater shark) for the caramelized fish khor trey, a fine trey damrey (oxyeleotris marmoratus / bleeker) for steaming while a fatty type is preferred for bamboo soup ‘samlor tumpeang’. Unfortunately, with dams and climate change, many of the species have disappeared or on the road to extinction.

The photographic flora in Cambodia is a must-have to put the right name on the right veggie, results of years of research. Finally, the recipe book from Princess Rasmi Sobhana is a rare snapshot of what was eaten in the court of Cambodia in the 1950s, including a lot of French and international recipes. The book with 60 recipes was recently republished and is available.

A special mention to the cookbook on Culinary Traditions of Cambodia by a well-loved NGO, Pour un Sourire d’Enfant (PSE): an attractive work that highlights provincial specialties with stunning photographs spread over double pages. Recipes ‘lack prahok’, yet worth having in your library for reference. These books are available at a reasonable price. If you are looking at starting a library of Khmer cuisine, go for these.

1.       Ang, C. (2020). La cuisine rurale d’Angkor, essai de sociologie culinaire: អាហារនៅជនបទអង្គ័រ. Yosothor.

2.       Davidson, A. (2004). Seafood of South-East Asia: A Comprehensive Guide with Recipes [A Cookbook] (2nd ed.). Ten Speed Press. And its companion: Davidson, A. (2003). Fish and Fish Dishes of Laos. Prospect.

3.       Leti, M., Hul, S., Fouché, J., & Cheng, S. K. (2013). Flore photographique du Cambodge. Éditions Privat.

4.       Sobhana R. The Cambodian Cookbook of H.r.h. Princess Rasmi Sobhana = Le Guide Culinaire Cambodgien De S.a.r. La Princesse Rasmi Sobhana. Place of publication not identified: U.S. Information Service; 196AD.

5.       This was reprinted recently in 2021: The Culinary Art of Cambodia តម្រាភោនាហារ: A Cambodian Princess’ Cuisine Guide. MAADS/Angkor Database Publication⁷.

6.       Lee, N. (2016). Culinary Traditions of Cambodia. Phnom Penh, Pour Un Sourire d’Enfant.

7.       Sinogastronomie: It is not a book but a digital platform (in French) offering a wealth of information on Cambodian, Chinese and other culinary experiences of the author, authoritative and fascinating website to visit and learn from:

https://sinogastronomie.wordpress.com/

OUR FAVORITE COOKBOOKS

The cookbooks we often use for everday cooking

Hem Meakphal.  (2011, 2017).  The book of Khmer cooking.  Cambodia :  The HMP Group. Definitely our favorite, for the choices of the dishes. We consult over and over. They are the ordinary meals we can find on any family table, the amok, the kari saraman but also the sour soup with young tamarind leaves and fish roes, the nhoam saray (seaweed salad), or nhoam Kbal Trey Sanday (salad of Sanday fish head). It is unpretentious and mirror ordinary Cambodians’ table. The instructions are simple and need to be complemented by general cooking skills such as using prepared broth as a base for any soup. An improved 2017 version provides additional recipes and step-by-step pictures of how to cook these. It costs about $10 at IBC bookstore on Preah Monivong boulevard in Phnom Penh.

Long, S., Linden, K. (2013). Ambarella: Cambodian Cuisine. London: White Tara Publishing. Available in French (2010): Au pays de la pomme cythère and an earlier English version « Authentic Cambodian Recipes: From Mother to Daughter”. The English version of Ambarella comes with a hard cover in a beautiful box. Written with the help of her daughter Kanika Linden, Madame Sorey’s life threads through the book with small vignettes. I am told she was one of the finest cooks in the country, with a savoir-vivre and cuisine that comes from the pre-war Khmer high society. The cookbook is generous in number and variety of recipes.

Khmer Cuisine (2002), Raffles Editions, Phnom Penh. We have always liked the finesse of the Raffles Grand Hotel and the little cookbook reflects their attention. See in the footnote an example of their earlier menu⁸. The twelve recipes have been well selected and reflect the most popular dishes of urban Cambodia with the eternal amok, banana blossom salad or pumpkin custard. Photos and dressings are attractive and recipes well explained in English and Khmer.

Thaitawat, N. (2000). The Cuisine of Cambodia. Bangkok. Nusara and Friends Co. Ltd. As with Ambarella, this is a 250+ page cookbook worth its weight. Well researched with stories on stories, beautifully designed with appetizing pictures. Written in the early 2000 when the country was just opening, it was the first coffee table book to celebrate Khmer Cuisine. Many will criticize that the authors are Thai but it is to ignore how much roots we share and that talent has not frontiers.

REFUGEE FOOD: FROM MOTHERS TO DAUGHTERS AND SONS⁹

Book Covers - Left photo: Longteine de Monteiro; Right photo: Kanika Linden and Long Sorey

These books are often written by Khmers living overseas, refugees, daughters or sons of refugees who have adapted the recipes to the availability of ingredients or the taste of their public. Quality varies, with some definitely lacking prahok to my taste or recipes are a bit of a shortcut, and some are just what we need.

Longteine de Monteiro is from the upper class of pre-war Cambodia who opened the Elephant Walk restaurant in Boston. Many will relate to the story she narrates about her journey from exile to becoming an acclaimed chef. I like very much the book from Alford about his life in a rural Khmer-Thai village along the border in Surin Province. He documents rural life as well as the recipes from his spouse and family members. The small book in French by Ly Sarany is well done, simple with attractive photographs. Christine Su wrote a short-story about chef T. with five recipes, ít is not a cookbook or traité on the ‘kroeung’, despite the title. Angkor Culinaire has some interesting first pages referring to the sculpted panels of Angkor Wat. Demaz Baker was born in Cambodia from the Khmer high society (Tep family) and came to the United States in 1976. She wrote the book in having in mind the ‘young Cambodian Americans who would like to learn the dishes they may have grown up eating and now miss’. Narin Jameson is the spouse of a former foreign service officer and prepared Cambodian dishes to welcome guests. The taste has been adapted to their palate. The recipes from Joanna Duong’s restaurant in San Francisco show the breadth of her menu.

Overall these books are dated as ingredients are now easily accessible in many countries and it is hard to stand the test of Instagram, YouTube¹⁰ and other social media. The one I would really recommend to have is Ambarella (or French: Au Pays de la Pomme Cythère) from Long Sorey.

1.       Long, S., Linden, K. (2013). Ambarella: Cambodian Cuisine.  White Tara Publishing. And in French (2010) Au pays de la pomme cythère.

2.       Ly, S., Alexandre, E. (2014). La table du Cambodge: Livre de cuisine. Edition Magellan &Cie

3.       De Monteiro, L., Neustadt, K. (1998) The Elephant Walk Cookbook: Cambodian Cuisine. Houghton Mifflin.

4.       Touch, V. M. (n.d.). Angkor Culinaire: Art, Religion, Culture and Food.

5.       Alford, J. (2015). Chicken in the Mango Tree: Food and Life in a Thai-Khmer Village. Douglas & McIntyre¹¹.

6.       Su, C., & Ouk, V. T. (2022). Kroeung: Cambodian Cooking with Chef T. Southeast Asia Research & Cultural Heritage C.

7.       Jameson, N. S., & Chan, V. (2016). Cooking the Cambodian Way: The Intertwined Story of Cooking and Culture in Cambodia (3rd ed.). Caring for Cambodia.

8.       Baker, D. (2009). A Taste of Cambodian Cuisine. Xlibris Corporation.

9.       Duong, J. S., Dan, K. (2011). A Cambodian Cookbook: Selected popular dishes from the Kitchen of Angkor Wat Restaurant San Francisco 1983 - 2005. Xlibris.

COOKING SCHOOLS

Covers of cookbooks by cooking schools in Cambodia

While the section above describes books written by mostly Cambodians living overseas, the books listed below have been written by foreigners based or invited to Cambodia. Taste has been toned down and definitely lacks prahok. Some recipes are fusion food, I would pass on these ones. The cookbooks are a laudable effort to document the work of the apprentices and make the recipes accessible. They are pedagogical, clear and professionally designed with explanations about the herbs or techniques used. They are attractive for their design and engaging if you are first-timers in the kitchen or live overseas. If you were to choose one, pick up the one from Sala Bai (2005 - in French only though) or from Nataly Lee/PSE (2016).

1.       Riviere, J., Smend, M. (2005).  La Cuisine du Cambodge avec les apprentis de Sala Bai. Picquier.

2.       Yetter, G. (2013). The sweet tastes of Cambodia. Pour Un Sourire d’Enfant (PSE).

3.       Sok, C., Auer, G., (2007). From Spiders to Water Lilies: Creative Cambodian Cooking with Friends. Friends-International.

4.       Auer, G., Brown, S., & Mizerski, J. (2004). The Best of Friends: The Restaurant. Phnom Penh Cambodia (1st ed.). Mith Samlanh/Friends.

5.       Riviere, J., Bourgknecht, D. D., Lallemand, D., & Smend, M. (2017). Cambodian Cooking: A humanitarian project in collaboration with Act for Cambodia (1st ed.). Tuttle Publishing.

There are also Khmer language cookbooks that are amazing but are not in this list. I am also thinking of the wholesome research publications from defunct Reyum Institute of Arts and Culture. We have not bought yet Nhum by Ros Rotanak¹² or Khmer Cuisine by Song Saa Resort, too expensive. To be continued… we have an ongoing love story with Khmer, Lao, Thai, French and worldwide cuisine. Do you have great Khmer or Lao cookbooks to suggest? If you have used copies for a modest price or donation, send these our way, they have a home here!

Happy cooking to all.

1. Prahok (in Cambodian cuisine) or Padaek (Lao cuisine) is fermented fish that we use profusely in our dishes. They give a body, the umami to our food.

2. https://srgroupcambodia.wordpress.com/2018/01/30/cambodia-chef-association-cca/

3. https://cambodiarestaurantassociation.com.kh/

4. Interestingly, the Khmer version of curry “kroeung” recipe has not be codified, both in terms of ingredients and quantity with each book offering a different recipe. Madame Long Serey provides great details in her books from the green, yellow, red to the saraman curries.

5. Check for example: Panjabi, C. (2007, 2023). 50 Great Curries of India. Barnes & Noble; Bhumichitr, V. (2016). 50 Great Curries of Thailand. Adfo Books; Trang, C., Thompson, D., Owen, S., Singh, V., & Publishing (2006). Curry Cuisine. D. K.; Iyer R. (2008). 660 Curries. Workman Pub.

6. An excellent presentation of the book can be found here: https://angkordatabase.asia/books/la-cuisine-rurale-dangkor-essai-de-sociologie-culinaire-rural-cuisine-of-angkor

7. https://angkordatabase.asia/books/the-culinary-art-of-cambodia

8. https://www.raffles.com/siem-reap/pdf/1435669108-7661-restaurant-le-grandpdf/

9. We have not seen a book yet with recipes passed on from fathers to their daughters or sons. But our daughter has learned to cook with her dad.

10. A whole conversation can take place here, lots of influential influencers are just … hmm, just bad food.

11. Author of Hot Sour Salty Sweet, winner of the James Beard Award for Cookbook of the Year.

12. Written by Nataly Lee, the same author as “Culinary Traditions of Cambodia” from PSE.