By Phil Lees
SBS Blog (Australia)
Progress or wanton destruction of Phnom Penh's street food?
It is strange to spend your Sunday evening watching somewhere that you occasionally picked up a cup of coffee be razed to the ground on television, along with the entire suburb that contained it.
On Sunday, SBS televised the destruction of one of the joints where I’d stop in for coffee while I was in Phnom Penh. The flattening of Dey Krahom, documented in last week’s episode of Dateline, was directly opposite my plush, air-conditioned office. I could stare out the window into the barely organised maze of houses while I worked. I still recognise the remains of those houses as they were being knocked down. Some mornings I’d drop into Dey Krahom for a coffee from one of the roadside vendors, more often than not, when I forgot to get petrol for my motorbike and ground to an embarrassing halt.
There was a small roadside breakfast vendor there who cooked the classic Cambodian breakfast of flame-grilled, marinated pork, pickles and rice (bai sach chrouk); and for a few cents also did overroasted black coffee thickened and sweetened with condensed milk.
I never really developed a taste for the coffee but a glass of the local brew was one brutal hit of caffeine and sugar in the early morning. The pork and rice in Dey Krahom was nothing special. But there was a well-stocked petrol stand next to it.
Dey Krahom also housed a concentration of mobile fruit vendors who parked their flatbed fruit trolleys there during the day. In the late afternoons, a truck would arrive and divide up a selection of seasonal fruit amongst the vendors who would then head out into the evening to hawk their wares along Phnom Penh’s riverfront until late into the night. Somewhere towards the centre of the suburb was a small, shambolic market – official reports document 200 stallholders – but I had only ever skirted around the edges of it. I probably missed something.
Apart from the “systematic lack of due process and procedural protections; inadequate compensation; lack of effective remedies for communities facing eviction; excessive use of force; and harassment, intimidation and criminalization of NGOs and lawyers working on this issue”, I wonder how much street food and street life is being squeezed out of the city in the process of evictions. Part of the charm of the Phnom Penh are the array of informal food vendors; the families eking out a living behind a pork-and-rice stand and small market stalls. Poverty is in no way charming but all of my favoured vendors had homes (and presumably, land title). Many were doing well from their trade. Many were in the suburbs like Boeung Kak and Dey Krahom which have been destroyed and their residents pushed out to the uninhabitable edges of town.
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Phil Lees grew up in rural Victoria, the first generation in his family to not have lived on the farm and thereby not slaughter their own meat.
In 2005 he moved to Cambodia and started the nation’s first food blog, Phnomenon.com, named after the best pun that he has ever made. It turns out that Cambodian food is delicious and unlike the warnings in most guidebooks, is not likely to kill you with any immediacy. Gridskipper called him a “national treasure”. Lonely Planet’s Greater Mekong guide called him “the unofficial pimp of Cambodian cuisine”. The New York Times laughed at a funny hotdog he saw.
Phil makes a mean sausage, a hoppy pale ale, a modest laksa. He owns three barbecues and is in the market for a fourth. He’s never eaten at a Michelin-starred restaurant. There is more important food in the world to be eaten.
It is strange to spend your Sunday evening watching somewhere that you occasionally picked up a cup of coffee be razed to the ground on television, along with the entire suburb that contained it.
On Sunday, SBS televised the destruction of one of the joints where I’d stop in for coffee while I was in Phnom Penh. The flattening of Dey Krahom, documented in last week’s episode of Dateline, was directly opposite my plush, air-conditioned office. I could stare out the window into the barely organised maze of houses while I worked. I still recognise the remains of those houses as they were being knocked down. Some mornings I’d drop into Dey Krahom for a coffee from one of the roadside vendors, more often than not, when I forgot to get petrol for my motorbike and ground to an embarrassing halt.
There was a small roadside breakfast vendor there who cooked the classic Cambodian breakfast of flame-grilled, marinated pork, pickles and rice (bai sach chrouk); and for a few cents also did overroasted black coffee thickened and sweetened with condensed milk.
I never really developed a taste for the coffee but a glass of the local brew was one brutal hit of caffeine and sugar in the early morning. The pork and rice in Dey Krahom was nothing special. But there was a well-stocked petrol stand next to it.
Dey Krahom also housed a concentration of mobile fruit vendors who parked their flatbed fruit trolleys there during the day. In the late afternoons, a truck would arrive and divide up a selection of seasonal fruit amongst the vendors who would then head out into the evening to hawk their wares along Phnom Penh’s riverfront until late into the night. Somewhere towards the centre of the suburb was a small, shambolic market – official reports document 200 stallholders – but I had only ever skirted around the edges of it. I probably missed something.
Apart from the “systematic lack of due process and procedural protections; inadequate compensation; lack of effective remedies for communities facing eviction; excessive use of force; and harassment, intimidation and criminalization of NGOs and lawyers working on this issue”, I wonder how much street food and street life is being squeezed out of the city in the process of evictions. Part of the charm of the Phnom Penh are the array of informal food vendors; the families eking out a living behind a pork-and-rice stand and small market stalls. Poverty is in no way charming but all of my favoured vendors had homes (and presumably, land title). Many were doing well from their trade. Many were in the suburbs like Boeung Kak and Dey Krahom which have been destroyed and their residents pushed out to the uninhabitable edges of town.
--------
Phil Lees grew up in rural Victoria, the first generation in his family to not have lived on the farm and thereby not slaughter their own meat.
In 2005 he moved to Cambodia and started the nation’s first food blog, Phnomenon.com, named after the best pun that he has ever made. It turns out that Cambodian food is delicious and unlike the warnings in most guidebooks, is not likely to kill you with any immediacy. Gridskipper called him a “national treasure”. Lonely Planet’s Greater Mekong guide called him “the unofficial pimp of Cambodian cuisine”. The New York Times laughed at a funny hotdog he saw.
Phil makes a mean sausage, a hoppy pale ale, a modest laksa. He owns three barbecues and is in the market for a fourth. He’s never eaten at a Michelin-starred restaurant. There is more important food in the world to be eaten.
6 comments:
hey, for your information, street food is economical and are really good and tasty too. we should emphasize cleanliness and hygienic practice in food preparation in cambodia's street food, though. after all, street food in korea, for example are cheap and delicious and i'm sure cambodia can copy korea as long as our people practice hygiene and cleanliness; that's what can make a difference. so, nothing wrong with street food, just educate the people to keep hygiene and cleanliness in mind at all time, though! god bless cambodia.
yes, i like street food, too. i think it is a good idea to emphasize and teach or educate the people who make a living by selling street food to practice hygiene and cleanliness. nothing wrong with street food, in fact street food exist all over asian countries and the world for that matter! god bless cambodia.
the key word there is "hygiene", be careful or be dead!
Especially those that go back there for the first time after a long long time out of the motherland...
No no, I don't think you want Clorine in you food. It's better to leave everything as natural as it can be.
of course, we prefer organic food. i think practicing sanitation is good, especially in the food preparation business. otherwise, people don't eat there, if it's dirty and making them sick from eating the food. that's why practicing hygiene or sanitation like hand washing, disinfect the utensils etc... i mean, it's all common sense stuff. always keep in mind the food preparer that if you don't eat the food yourself, then imagine how the buyers or the consumers think too. so, it will affect the business if it's dirty, especially the area of eating, too. please keep the area clean always by making the place as home feel as possible with lots of lightings and house plants, and other local home decoration. also, in cambodia the use of fan will chase away flies and also perhaps have a soft, mellow music in the background helps your eating establishment too. good luck!
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