Cambodian Cooking

Like any national cuisine, ours contains a blend of influences — from multiple ethnicities living in Cambodia, to the cuisines of China, Vietnam, Laos & Thailand, to French techniques from our former colonizers. But Cambodian food has several flavor profiles and ingredients all its own.
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One famous traditional Cambodian ingredient is prahok, a fermented fish paste that adds powerful umami. Another is kroeung — various herb & spice pastes that form the foundation of many iconic Cambodian dishes. Kroeung (គ្រឿង) literally means “ingredients” in Khmer. And the celebrated Kampot peppercorn, cultivated for generations in southern Cambodia, is now making a comeback after being nearly wiped out by the Khmer Rouge.

Find out more about Cambodian foodways in Slow Noodles, which includes more than 20 of Chantha's favorite recipes.

Yes! Most U.S. cities have specialty markets that carry things like rice paper wrappers, lemongrass, fresh turmeric, Thai basil, glutinous rice, tamarind, coconut milk, palm sugar, and a wide variety of noodles. And most of the ingredients—such as pork, rice, eggs, shallots, garlic, or fish—are available in any grocery. You can also order some the harder-to-find ingredients online.

The appendix of Slow Noodles will include a detailed glossary of Khmer food terms and ingredients, with instructions for shopping, storing, and prepping.

Ask any group of Cambodians, diasporic Cambodians, or dudes on Reddit, and you’ll get a bunch of answers: Fish amok. Num banhchok. Prahok. Khor ko. Lok lak. Prahok. Samlor machu kroeung. Samlor kako. Kuy teav.

The leading contender is probably fish amok, a seafood curry steamed in banana leaves. It's a sumptuous special-occasion dish, one that tourists go home raving about. And it's a source of national pride. But what percentage of Cambodians have never even tasted it?

On that basis, you could make a case for num banhchok — "Khmer noodles." They're hand-extruded rice noodles made into a variety of humble dishes with soupy sauces and lots of fresh produce, herbs, and often, fish. It's simple fare, sold in street markets and beloved by all. But it’s a favorite of Cambodians (rather than of visitors), so it’s not a global ambassador in quite the same way as a fancy dish like amok. So which one should stand for a nation?

How do we choose one dish to define a culture? In Anya von Bremen's book, National Dish, she travels the world, wondering why foods like ramen, pizza, and tapas came to symbolize Tokyo, Naples, and Seville. As one reviewer wrote, our compulsion to connect food to identity "has more to do with myth and marketing than with historical fact.”

Of course, Cambodian cuisine hasn’t conquered planet Earth to quite the same degree that Japanese, Italian, and Spanish cuisines have — at least, not yet. (We’re working on that!) Maybe that means Cambodians still get a say in what dishes become global icons. Maybe we can tell a story that’s true about who we are and what we eat and skip the myth-making altogether.