Eating in Cambodia

Since moving to Cambodia we have eaten a lot of good Khmer food. We have gotten used to eating rice on a daily basis, and we’ve noticed that we pile on a little more each day. Khmer food usually is good and simple. Each meal typically is a huge scoop of rice, a smaller scoop of vegetables, and a little meat. However, there are also some creepy things that we have tried as well. One day in our Khmer class, our teacher brought us crickets. I thought the cricket tasted kind of like chips, not too bad…except that one of the legs got caught in my throat for about half an hour! 

We also worked ourselves up to trying “baby duck eggs,” which are fertilized duck eggs.The first time I saw one of these, I thought I was opening a hardboiled egg, but what I found as I peeled back the shell was a hardboiled egg with a little baby duck staring back at me from inside.  I did not eat it the first time I saw it because I was filled with guilt and compassion for the little bird who was looking up at me.  However, a few weeks later, we went to the night market, and they had deep-fried baby duck eggs, so we tried them.  Neither one of us was able to eat the head! 

 Finally, we have also tried fried tarantulas.  I was hoping there would be some kind of breading but there wasn’t—just fried tarantula.  If I had to eat one of these 3 items again, it would probably be the cricket, but reality tells me that at some point I’ll probably eat all of these items again.  They all tasted okay, but each one made me feel a little creepy!

-Katy

The unwelcomed visitor

Today we had an unwelcomed visitor in our apartment. I was sitting in a chair reading when I noticed something stretched out on the floor. I looked at it a few times and then I realized that is was a snake. Katy was in the next room and I didn’t want her to see it because I knew she would be scared, so I grabbed a shoe to try to smash it before Katy realized what I was doing.  Killing it with my shoe didn’t work so well, and Katy heard me and left the apartment.  As all this was going on, our language helper showed up for our lesson, and she is also terrified of snakes. Our language helper found a wooden club and handed it to me. With the club I was able to defeat our unwelcomed visitor. This is the first time we have seen a snake in Cambodia besides the huge ones at the zoo. Hopefully this is the first and the last time we’ll have an unwelcomed visitor.  What can I say, it’s always an adventure every day here in Cambodia.

- Alan