Silk Farming and the Best Khmer Cooking Class Ever: Friday, 4 January 2013

We started today's adventure with a tour of the Angkor Silk Farm.  The 40-minute tour was very informative and interesting.  We saw the production from the growth of the silk worms, their feeding of mulberry bush leaves (that's all they eat, apparently), their spinning of a cocoon in preparation for a metamorphosis that never happens.  The worms are killed by sunlight before they can escape their cocoons and become moths.

Once the worms are dead, the silk thread from the cocoon is worked with in a variety of ways.  Ultimately, it's separated into raw (cheap) and fine (expensive) silk that is woven into the scarves, bags and what not that are sold in the Artisans Angkor shop.

We really enjoyed the tour as it gave us a newfound appreciation for all the effort that went into the making of the silk products we saw sold around town.

After a light lunch at our new favourite restaurant, we hit the Paper Tiger for our cooking school.  This was one epic event.  It started humbly enough with each of us - Lockie, Maeve, Meghan, and myself - choosing an item from the restaurant menu.  Then the adventure began.  We walked a block or two over to the old market where our guide/chef pointed out all the ingredients that we would be using in the creation of our dishes.  We didn't buy anything - all the items were pre-purchased and waiting for us at the restaurant - but we did see how it would be bought.  Next, we started the food prep.  This took almost two hours!  We cut, ground with a mortar and pestle and sliced all of the ingredients that would go into our dishes.  Once the cooking finally got started, we were tuckered.  Our task master chef insisted that we all work the mortar and pestle for what seemed like hours, until the ingredients were a fine paste and not a lumpy substance.  In pairs our group members - we were joined by three folks from England - entered the kitchen and cooked up our meals over the hot gas stovetop.

At long last, everyone's meals were done and ready to eat.  With 7 people at the small table and 2 dishes per person, the table was chockers.  Seeing as it was nearly 4:30 by the time we ate - 3.5 hours after the start of the class - we all eagerly tucked into our meals.  Dessert came in the form of a somewhat disappointing pumpkin custard treat (chosen by Maeve) that was tasty but unnecessary as we were all so wedged we could barely eat a spoon or two of it.  In the end, this epic experience was a lot of fun and, dollar for dollar (it cost $13/person), probably the best value outing we've had on this trip...and possibly in years!

As has been the custom in SR, we hit the pool for a relaxing swim before bed.  The temples were on tap for tomorrow.

- LH