Prahok soul of Khmer cuisine

Jan 9, 2012
By Jane F. Ragavan
The star

The smell of the Cambodian fermented fish paste called prahok may have you reeling, but it is the soul of Khmer cooking.

IT’S prahok season in Cambodia – you can smell it.

On the banks of the Tonle Sap River, hundreds of families lug baskets of finger-sized silvery fish from boats, gut and slice off their heads and then crush them underfoot before the pulp is dried, salted and left to ferment in bags or jars for weeks or even months.

Work in progress: The fish needs to be cleaned, gutted and crushed underfoot before it is salted and left to ferment.

Its pungent smell hangs heavily in the air, but it is no bother to Cambodians because prahok is the soul of Khmer cuisine. Often called Cambodian or fish cheese in English, prahok is equal in value to rice. In fact, farmers will travel from outlying provinces to trade rice for the protein-rich fish paste, a much needed supplement in the countryside where simple meals of prahok and rice are common.

It can also be used in soups, but is mostly used as a condiment in a wide variety of Khmer dishes.

Some years ago, there was a poor harvest of fish as well as a problem with illegal fishing. The production of prahok consequently suffered.

“Without the prahok, health will suffer. Without the prahok, food will taste bad in the mouth. Without the prahok, life is not as we know it,” is how a fisherman then described the poor harvest to a travel writer.

This year, there has been an abundance of riel – Cambodian currency is named for these little fish – causing nets to overflow and prices to drop.

Despite the problems and the back-breaking work involved in the production of prahok, it is something many Cambodians will not forgo.

Take your pick: People selecting fish to be made into prahok.

Some, however, are shunning this heritage.

One Cambodian told a journalist writing for the online news site, The Faster Times, that as he has moved from being a farmer to running a cooking school in the city of Battambang, he no longer likes prahok anymore.

“Some people look down on you if you eat prahok, because if you eat prahok, you are a farmer, you are poor,” he said.

Another man echoed the sentiment, saying that people with money would only eat prahok “only once every few months. When they don’t have money, they eat a lot.”

In 2007, Cambodia announced it was seeking Geographical Indication status (just like Champagne) for five distinctive regional products it deemed regionally unique under World Trade Organisation guidelines. One of them was prahok. It was later reported that Kampot pepper and Kampong Speu palm sugar had gained the recognition, but the registration process was ongoing for its other products.

Foreigners encountering prahok in its raw form for the first time may find it repugnant – the grey to brown colour looks unappetising and the potent smell can be offputting. People who swear by it say that once it is incorporated in cooking, it lifts the flavour and produces a dish that is completely different than when it started.

Sun-drie d: Fish are laid out to dry.

Those of us who know the delicious transformative effects of belacan and cincalok in our own cuisine would not disagree.