In my previous articles, I talked a lot about food, edible plants, recipes for various dishes and many other things related to food. You can click my signature below to read more about them!
However, I want to talk about how do we preserve our food for a long time use, for example meat and vegetables?
Some can last up for days, months and for years too. How do we do that? Many family in the rural areas do not have refrigerators and our ancestors did not have it too but they passed these knowledge to us. It means that the way they preserved food was here long time ago!
I admire Cambodian ancestors; my ancestors; who found ways to keep food without using refrigerator at all for a long time use. I will come up one by one how they preserve it! The process can make them last for months and some last for years.
Meats
- ផ្អាប់ Fermented: there are two forms of fermented food and usually they are with freshwater fish or shrimp. Fish is available so much throughout the country so locals process it and use for a long time. (1) ប្រហុក read as Prohok (fermented fish, only using salt). This one can use as a base ingredient for other dishes and can be invented into many things. You can eat them raw, cook them, mix them with other things or use it as a base ingredient in various soups. It can be kept up to years… (2) ផ្អក read as Pa-ok (fermented by adding roasted rice - the taste is sour after, short lifespan than that of Prohok). What you can make them from? Fish, small shrimp, pork… Keep them in the jars.
- ងៀត Dry: They marinade them with salt, sugar and sometimes pepper then dry them with the sunshine. What you can make them from? Beef, pork, crocodile meat, wildlife meat (not recommended to eat from wildlife conservation perspective), seafood (shrimp, stingray, squid). They can be kept for a long time, up to a year! Store them in open air space (far from pets)
- ឆ្អើរ Smoke: What can make them from? Fish and some seafood - smoked fish can make yummy dishes such as mango salad. Keep them in opened air space.
- សាច់ក្រក Sausage: Pork, beef (that can be kept for a long time too)
- សាច់ផាត់ Phat: different from drying, this one you cook either fish or pork well and then you dry them. Then, you rip open the cooked ones fiber by fiber, fry them on the cook again and keep in a closed bottle.
- ប្រៃ Salty: egg kept in salty water or ash left from firewood. You keep them there, when you want to use take one by one to use.
Vegetables
- ជ្រក់ Pickle: Bamboo, Cucumber: pickle for years. The bamboo then can be used to make different of soups. Cabbage pickle is so good to go with grilled fish! Kaffir lime pickle can be used for a long time and used as dip-sauce to eat as side dish.
- ក្រូចង៉ាំង៉ូវ Fermented limes: lemons that are pickled to use in kinda soups.
- ចាវ Sweet pickle: especially for cucumber, whole or cut half of them and soak in sweet-salt juice and keep them there. You will eat them raw with rice and grilled fish!
- សំងួត Dry: taro leaves, bamboo, tamarind, paddy field herb (thyme)
- ប្រៃ Salty: reddish,
Fruits
- ដំណាប់ Jam: mango, mango jam [liquid], pineapple, tamarind, tamarind, and many others
- កូរ Pudding: Mango, pineapple
Juice
- Palm juice - to become wine or sour wine
- Palm juice will be refined to become brown sugar
- Honey - just keep it like that!
I have seen my mom and elders in the village do it a lot and keep for using at home.
- Those preserved food are kept for a long time and will be used occasionally, especially for dry season that most fish or vegetables are not available.
- Those preservation food is very good for packing, especially when people go to work in the field, travel far from home or go camping.
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@Sophia_Cambodia Very interesting post indeed. I love fermented and preserved food, and when done fully naturally in traditional methods with salt/sugar, should be very good for health with apparently a lot of probiotic capabilities. Unfortunately at the moment because of some digestive ailments, I am missing my kimchi and such a lot. Hopefully I can get back to eating some of these. And I will definitely try some of these when I get to Cambodia.
I won’t say all preserved food is good though, especially those done in an industrial scale where possible chemical flavorings and preservatives are used to have speed and scale to market.
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Yea @StephenAbraham you are right there. I love it when it is done naturally or using traditional method but it is very difficult to know which ones unless you have a loyal seller to whom you trust. I love to buy them from farmers who produce small scales only and I can ensure that they do it traditionally unlike from big markets with big products where we don’t really know the sources.
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Hey @Sophia_Cambodia
What a wonderful and educative post. You clearly discussed all the best practices to preserve foods in your country. To my best of knowledge almost all these you wrote are applicable in my own country. Just a few are new to me.
Thank you for sharing this amazing post with us here on connect.
Best regards.
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Hey @Sophia_Cambodia
I am curious to know more about palm juice. Here in Nigeria, we have palm wine, it is gotten from palm tree and it is white or will I say light milky in color. it usually has yeast. I guess I have to write a whole full post about it now 
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It is interesting to know that we have similar ways of doing things @Austinelewex especially in food preservation.
May you share what are new to you?
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@Austinelewex the wine is two. One is because we keep the palm juice for a long time so it become very sour and alcohol too, drink more you will get drank. It is called ទឹកត្នោតជូរ read as Teouk Thnot Ju (Sour Palm Juice but it is treated as alcohol) I think this is what you said about yeast and color!
Another one, they have a different way to make it into the wine [like Western wine but produced from palm juice]. In Cambodia, we have rice wine, banana wine and this palm wine.
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phat and Pa-Ok are new to me. @Sophia_Cambodia
By the way I would love to taste rice and banana wine. 
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They are quite strong @Austinelewex
Oh, I see… amazing how you have everything and do it the same way here which is far away from each other. Maybe people in the past also learnt from each other?
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Even until now people learn from each other @Sophia_Cambodia
Are you saying that Rice and banana wine are very strong alcohol?
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Yes, we are learning from each other @Austinelewex but it is very easy these days with transport and online communication but what about in the past like long time ago? That’s what amazed me.
Yes, rice wine and banana wine is very strong 
I remember the banana wine made in one small community I worked and it can burn into flame with lighter!
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Really @Sophia_Cambodia
Are you sure it doesn’t have Ethanol base in production? 
It is all organic but I don’t know how they made it that way?
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@Sophia_Cambodia You have to do research and tell me about it… Or maybe write an entirely new post on it.
Best regards
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hahah, okay I will ask the community member how they do it when I visit them next time @Austinelewex
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I found some similarity @Sophia_Cambodia Dried anchovy and dried squid are very common ingredients in many Indonesian dishes. I’m intrigued about crocodile meat since I’ve never eaten it before, how does it taste?
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I have never eaten such meat too @Lusianaa some people do!
Let’s go to Cambodia ,trying one by one
@Sophia_Cambodia great post ,
Dry fish is my part daily food by the way
Okay dear, let’s do it @Nyainurjanah
They are best for picnic trip and camping!
@ Sophia_20 Спасибо за подробное описание.Мне очень понравилось.Я тоже много заготавливаю продуктов;мясо ,овощи,рыбу.Многое похоже на ваш.Но у нас очень мало морепродуктов.Я сам выращиваю овощи и фрукты и их консервирую,солю,сушу,квашу.У меня есть Youtube канал на котором я показываю как готовят в моей стране.
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