It was 1998 when Jerry first visited the 7 January Bread Co., named for the day the Vietnamese invaded Phnom Penh and ousted the Khmer Rouge. The factory is tucked in a big building, blackened with the soot of continuous fire. Young men hustled through the blazing heat of the giant ovens that cooked the capital’s popular sandwich bread and breakfast baguettes. I wasn’t along on that story, at that time, but I remember Jerry telling me about the light. And I remember the photo above, which stuck in my mind for years, pulling me back to Cambodia long after we had moved on.
7 January Bread Co., 2010
Move ahead a dozen years. It’s a muggy morning at the sort of hour when slanted orange sunlight beams on the brink of hot months to come. We ride up to the factory entrance and peek inside. It’s still here. Most everything looks the same, Jerry says, as though no time passed in a span of 12 years. The young men, of course, are different, but the conditions haven’t changed—except the light, if anything, has diminished. And the ovens have nearly doubled in size.
We chat a bit with 12-year-old Mouy Sang, the owner’s daughter, who says they use a simple recipe of flour, salt, yeast, egg and water, just as her grandfather did when he started the business in 1984.
“When my father retired, I started to be the boss,” says her father, Tang Pao Sreng. Business has grown through the years, though “the profit is not good.” His baguettes sell for 400 riel (10 cents) apiece, but sidewalk vendors up the price to $1 or more per sandwich. His bread goes all over town, and he bakes as many loaves as needed. “If someone orders a lot, we make more than 10,000 pieces of bread a day,” he says. “If someone orders 5,000 pieces, we make 5,000 pieces.”
The factory is divided in half—one room dark and oppressive, with four giant ovens, each nearly the size of a single-car garage; the other room lighter and airier, with a two-story ceiling and a stainless steel MacAdams Baking Systems industrial oven. Ancient cobwebs are dipped in dust and dripping from the rafters. Three fire extinguishers hang on the wall, almost unrecognizable beneath a blanket of soot.
This place smells human, of yeast and sweat and young men at work. It’s the scent of necessity. Most of the 20 to 30 employees come from other provinces where the only job is farming for an income that falls short of need. Here, they live on site and earn $2 a day, seven days a week. The bulk of their money goes back home.
A thin man sits beside the doorway, weighing packages of yeast and salt. Around the corner, workers stack long, rectangular trays of uncooked loaves while a colleague sprays a fine film of water across the dough.
In the corner, by the door, sunlight streams through a storm of flour as two boys twirl a giant tub beneath a rotating mixer. Little dough dollops fly from the tub, splattering across the room.An orange cat snoozes beside a pink Buddhist shrine; it lifts its head in a look of utter contentment. Jerry asks Tang Pao Sreng about the feline’s proficiency in catching mice. He laughs. “Oooh, no! That’s a lazy cat.”
A couple of boxes hold the morning’s mistakes. “These are burnt so we keep for pig or chicken feed,” Tang Pao Sreng says. He delivers the crusty loaves to his relatives around Phnom Penh.
Each tray requires 30 minutes in the oven. Every few minutes, workers in mitts twirl the trays in a graceful maneuver that assures even baking. Meanwhile, two clean, woven mats are spread across the floor near the doorway, and a basket the size of a bathtub is placed on its side. When the bread is done, the trays are dumped, and hundreds of loaves cascade across the mats. The bread crackles in fresh heat, popping like Rice Krispies in milk. Five trays, six trays, seven, eight nine are emptied before the little shrine, as though each and every loaf is presented as a gift to the gods.
Workers squat on the edge of the mat, arranging loaves into symmetrical piles, then filling the giant basket for delivery across town. I chat with Hong Heng, 23, as he counts and moves the loaves. He arrived five years ago from Prey Veng province. “I came here to make a living. I was jobless there.” Every month, he sends money back to his parents. He works two shifts a day—3 a.m. to 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The job is OK, he says, but he tires of bread. “I work with bread every day. I don’t want to eat it.”
Jerry and I stay a few hours that morning, then return two days later, as workers unload a truck full of flour. Each man carries two sacks in the crook of his neck. Sweat follows a path down a tattooed arm. Meanwhile, another employee heaves an axe, breaking one log at a time into useful segments of wood to feed the belching fires.
I talk with a young man named Kum Orn, who comes from the nearby province of Takeo. He used to make palm juice, not a lucrative living. So he moved to Phnom Penh “to have the city life,” meaning a steady job. He tells me his story while spinning dough in the dark corner of this photogenic room. I look around and think this place has charisma, with shafts of light that scream through holes in the roof. Smoke billows through narrow openings between two walls. It’s hard to imagine a setting with more picturesque light.
But I realize my perception of beauty is that of an observer, not a worker. I don’t shape wads of dough into little loaves, day after day, in a monotonous cycle. It’s hot, it’s stifling and repetitious. I wonder what Kum Orn thinks of the light in this room.
“If we had more light, it would be too hot,” he says.
But is it pretty?
“I don’t know, I never think about that.”
I wonder what he thinks of my questions, or the fact that I’m here, looking around. I wonder what he sees in this place, which I find intriguing. Does Kum Orn think this factory is interesting?
“Yes, he says. “It’s interesting to me because I have a job here.”
Sokheng is 16. She grew up in Prey Veng province but left home to work in a bread factory, cooking meals for 20 or 30 sweaty, hungry young men who make the little baguettes sold everywhere on Phnom Penh’s streets. She tends the charcoal fires in a dark nook beside the blazing ovens that inspire magic: several times a day, steaming, crackling, hot loaves of bread tumble from those ovens in a gush of heat. Though everyone here makes bread, no one really eats it. They eat the food that brought them through childhood on the farm: rice, fish, soup, curry. “That’s bread, this is rice. I don’t eat bread. I eat rice. Everyone here does,” Sokheng tells me.
Check back later this week for a story on this factory, a photographic miracle of light. Such a striking place with such tough stories (and such a luscious scent of fresh-baked bread). But first, I wanted to run this little snippet of Sokheng’s life because Monday is International Women’s Day, a holiday recognized and celebrated far more openly in Asia than it is back home in the States. Barely a woman herself, Sokheng, like so many others, has pretty much skipped adolescence and jumped straight into the rigors of the adult working world.
In this way, she differs from the global norm. She lives and works on site and gets paid a daily wage. She does not work in the field or the shop or the office, then return to her family to work her second job at home. Worldwide, women make up 46 percent of the statistically recognized workforce (a.k.a. paid labor). We’ve all heard about the wage-related gender gap—women get paid 16 percent less than men—but of equal concern is what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls the “invisible and unmeasured” work for which women get little or no recognition. We’re talking cooking, cleaning, caregiving and all the other household chores that deprive women of education, sleep, and outside jobs that pay (and subject women to the increased risks of respiratory illness, thanks to indoor air pollution). This issue is not confined to the developing world. By some estimates, European women spend twice as many hours doing household chores than their male partners. Take a look at a survey of American time use, and you’ll see the same holds true across the Atlantic, too.
So here’s something to note. This is a blog about food, with a great many pages devoted to the wonderful stuff I find in the market, cook in my kitchen and put in my mouth. True, I do spend a lot of time examining other corners of life, and I admittedly find food stories far more fascinating when coupled with the people behind them. But when I sit down to dinner (and Jerry can vouch), I’m savoring flavors and dissecting recipes and examining all the mysteries that mingle with my mouth. And that’s a luxury—to spend so much time and brainpower thinking, researching and dwelling on food because that is what I choose.
I say this because the vast majority of people I interview about food cook because they must. It’s a chore, it’s what they do, and despite my fascination with their creations, they frequently find nothing remarkable about them. My mother has cooked through her entire married life, and she’d rather not. Certainly, there are chefs and “foodies” and plenty of people I meet who share my obsessions with all things edible. But the Khmer woman who fries her fish and serves it with green mango? The Kuy villager who tromps through fields and returns home with a bundle of bitter greens? The Naga woman who cooks her chiles in ash and makes tree-tomato chutney? The Timorese fisherman who grills giant tunas with garlic? Inevitably, when I start asking questions, the answer is: “It’s normal, it’s “everyday food,” it’s what they do—and they eye me in a way that says they’re unaccustomed to such attention to their work. Though a little bit mystified, they are pleased with my interest in what they perceive to be, simply, life.
So this is what I’m thinking about on International Women’s Day 2010: all the women, all the world over, who cook our food for work, not pleasure. The women who tend the fires and clean the stoves and turn out nourishing things to eat, day after day, because cooking is what they do—and they have never really envisioned another life. Thank you for your work. You have fed me fully, and fed me well.
Speaking of Wisconsin, and beer food, I’m really surprised my fellow Cheeseheads have not picked up on this: wafer-thin fried cheese, Yunnan style. See—it’s all crispy and bubbly, dipped in salt (and a teensy bit of sugar). Looks like a chip, but it’s CHEESE! Can you think of better bar food for America’s Dairyland?
Just a suggestion.
(Get a plate of the above at Chiang Mai’s Yunnan Restaurant, Ran Aharn Mitr Mai, 42/2 Ratchamanka Road. Have patience with the service and you’ll be rewarded in food.)
It’s been one of those weeks of heat and fatigue, and a scratchy throat that won’t clear. A week of dusty boots and sweaty shirts and sunburned cheeks, after chatting with farmers in hot, dry fields. A week of crazy traffic, choking exhaust, and a blanket of air with perilously high PM10 levels.
But then I chat with a young Burmese woman who left home at 19 and has lived in fear and danger ever since. She tells me how she secretly returned to Burma last year, to retrieve her passport; how she hid and covered her head and faked an illness while riding a bus—just so the authorities would leave her alone. How she spotted her sister, briefly, until a neighbor recognized her and she was forced to flee. And how her heart thumped with fear the entire trip until she landed in Thailand and knew she had escaped arrest. She lives in limbo. Home is neither here nor there, she says. She is never truly safe in either place. She pays a lot of money to live here on the sly. So she sinks herself into her work, and spends her happiest hours quietly, in her room, alone. She used to wish for greater freedoms; for the chance to go outside and move around without thought. But then, she says, she met refugees on the Thai/Burma border who have never left in 20 years. Can you imagine? Twenty years in the exact same place, no chance to roam. This brave young woman is thankful for the life she has. I ask if she has ever published her story. No, she says, it’s not nearly as important or poignant as the stories of so many others from her homeland.
These are the reasons I write this blog: the people I meet, the things they teach me. And the food, of course, that intertwines our lives. (The conversation above took place over a simple plate of rice, a bowl of vegetable soup and a serving of fried bamboo.)
Yesterday, I learned that Saveur has nominated Rambling Spoon for Best Culinary Travel Blog in its first-ever food blog awards. Thank you, readers, for that honor. And thank you, Saveur, for the recognition.
A batch of Angkor brand caramelized coconut peanuts in the making
Today, a new partnership begins. From now on, you will find more of my ramblings on the Food Page of The Faster Times. I’ll be writing twice a month about Food Culture and linking back here with additional information and photos. Remember all those tasty Asian ways with peanuts I mentioned a few weeks ago? As promised, I’m offering the story of Ota Veverka, a native of the Czech Republic, and his Thai wife, Nadchalee Chantakarana, who brought five varieties of jazzed-up nuts to shops and bars across Siem Reap. Curious? Catch their story today on The Faster Times. Meanwhile, have a peek at their little kitchen operation.
Coconut peanuts before cooking
Nadchalee braves the heat, stirring through a half-hour peanut-making mission.
Nadchalee hauls out a batch made earlier that day.
Caramelized black sesame nuts
Angkor Peanuts for sale in Siem Reap only
(Don’t forget to read the story when it posts today on The Faster Times.)
A melt-in-your-mouth pork with caramelized sweetness and the contrasting flavors of bell pepper and crisp green onion. Amy Vue, of the Rice Palace Restaurant in Milwaukee, says she grew up eating this dish.
It feels worlds away and ages ago, those crisp wintry days (and nights) we spent in Wisconsin shortly after Christmas. Jerry and I traveled north from my parents’ place to Wausau, to meet Jim, and to explore the world of Hmong cooking in America. Then south again, to Milwaukee, to taste the Hmong flavors found in local restaurants and markets. The story is now out in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel—and I’m thrilled to see this cuisine getting its due attention these days. I’ll be writing more about Hmong food in the coming months. And soon we’ll be hiking the hills of Laos and Vietnam, where my interest in this culture began.
This is the last week to catch an extraordinary Reyum exhibit, Measurements in Khmer Society. It takes you through history, through the market and rice field, through sunrise and sunset, and everything between, to explain every little way in which Khmer people have measured the important stuff of life. The French introduced the meter in the 19th century; before that Khmers relied on their own system for measuring quantity, length, depth, height, size, volume and time. Many of these tools and terms are still used today. Truly fascinating. The accompanying book is only in Khmer, but the exhibit is translated into English, so I spent a fair bit of time taking notes. This is an indispensable list for any cook or restaurateur. Here are some of the gems I loved best:
QUANTITY
1 dambor = 4
1 dai = 4 fruits or objects
1 lo = 12 fruits or objects
1 snell = 2 betel leaves together kampeus = the measurement used for small sections of orange flesh or garlic cloves kleb = the measurement used for other sections of fruit flesh kuor = the measurement used for elongated fruits or vegetables changkom = a cluster measurement used for fruits with stems joining two objects smaeng = the measurement used for a cluster of areca nuts thleay = the measurement used for a cluster of coconuts or palm fruits snet = the measurement used for many bananas clustered together stong = many snet of bananas gumnor = the measurement used for a pile of items (such as vegetables in the market) changvay = the measurement used for coiled items (such as rice noodles) neum = a pair of oxen or buffalo in a yoke kras = a number of skewered smoked fish tranoat = fish, meat or fruit strung together in a knot kantong = the measurement used for items placed inside a bowl made of three leaves
1 chunlung = betel leaf or pepper trees climbing 1 pole
1 chuor = 1 row of people, animals or plants
1 phlet = 1 beehive
LENGTH, DEPTH, HEIGHT: thnang dai = the distance between the tip of the finger to the first interphalangeal joint tom = the distance between the tip of the thumb to the tip of the index finger on a stretched hand hat = the distance between the elbow and the tip of the middle finger on a stretched arm louk = the distance between the armpit and the tip of the middle finger on a stretched arm pyeam = the distance between the tips of the left fingers to the tips of the right fingers on two stretched arms pyeam damrei = the distance between the tip of the right foot to the tip of the left middle finger on a stretched body chumhean = the distance between two feet while walking, or the distance between two outstretched feet
And my favorite: muoy lbeuk seh = the distance of road between the place where a horse begins to gallop and the place where it reduces speed before stopping
SIZE: thnoab = objects the size of 2 fingers muoy chab = something held in the palm of the hand ob = the size of something a human can embrace with both arms
VOLUME: kambung = the amount of things that can be scooped into both hands touk dai = the amount of things that can be scooped into one hand kdab = the amount of things that can be grasped in one hand cheub = a pinch made with two fingertips muoy deuk = rice, corn, wood or bamboo packed in a sheaf and fully loaded into one oxcart
What fascinates me most is the arbitrary nature of these measurements. If 12 jackfruits or 12 limes or 12 of anything of in-between size can be measured by a single lo, that makes for a lot of imprecision. And I’m quite sure that if Jerry and I both stood with arms outstretched, we’d come up with two entirely different pyeams. But an understanding of the way people size up their world allows others to grasp the mentality behind speech, thought and behavior. I love this stuff!
One night, the lights go out in Battambang, and we are presented with the prospect of candlelight dining. This is a throwback to years past, when generators rumbled through the dark and electricity flickered on and off. We planned a patio dinner anyway; a few flames in the breeze would add ambiance to the meal.
Chicken. I thought about it all day, picturing an evening array of rotisserie carts stationed beside the market. This is new (relatively so). I remember Battambang years ago, when the city died down shortly after dark. Families turned in early, and few creatures traipsed through the downtown night—just howling dogs and street children huffing glue. Dinner wasn’t always easy to find back then. But now, we have whole chickens turning over flames. We have pots of soups and curries, salads and banana-leaf parcels of steamed fish. We take our loot back to the hotel, to the fourth-floor patio overlooking the cityscape.
We purchase half a chicken (a small hen, free-range of course) and a slice of grilled pork. It’s so very thin, like Canadian bacon, and deliciously caramelized. I imagine grilling something similar next summer in our backyard: thin pork and palm sugar, perhaps with a drizzle of green Battambang orange—if only such fruits of unbelievable sweetness were available in New Mexico.
We add to the table a packet of steamed amok; a plate of chicken fried with the most tender and gentle shavings of ginger; a mound of prahok, which lends the richness and potency of a good, stinky French cheese, paired with crisp, fresh vegetables.
We take, too, a serving of sour fish soup, a combination of samlor machou kreung (made with green Khmer curry paste, which derives its beautiful color from lemongrass leaves) and the Vietnamese-style of sour soup employing a contrast of tomato and pineapple.
And rice, of course—no Khmer meal is complete without it (unless you are a young female student concerned about her waistline… but that’s a story for another day).
We eat beside dancing flames in a darkened city alive with New Year firecrackers. We dine on a stone-hard table among pots of night-blooming jasmine, bougainvillea and little lime trees. Have you ever smelled a lime flower in full fragrance? Lush with citrus and perfume, a hint of mint, evocative of ice. I think of lime sorbet. I think I am ever so happy to eat dinners like these.
Every cook has a little love affair in the kitchen—utensils that bring aroma to life, tools that make it all happen. I was delighted when Renee Schettler Rossi asked me to write about my favored kitchen item for a Valentine’s Day article on Leite’s Culinaria. It took no time for me to choose an object of love. Have a look at the website for my musings on the mortar and pestle (all six of mine sitting on our kitchen counter). And discover what other food lovers have to say about their kitchen affairs.
Welcome to my ramblings on food, drink, travel, politics, history and all the other avenues that converge in life. I’m a journalist, author and media trainer; and for five years I was Gourmet's Asia correspondent until the magazine's recent closure. I’m a bit obsessive in the kitchen. Much like my mother, I start thinking about dinner well before breakfast….
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