A man walks into the psychiatrist’s office with a zucchini up his nose, a cucumber in his left ear, and a breadstick in his right ear. He says, “What is wrong with me?
The psychiatrist replies, “You are not eating properly.”

That made me chuckle, but eating properly in Cambodia is no joke.

Last month the cost of food in Cambodia rose 24%. At this rate, the cost of food will almost double every four months. Yet pay is not rising at all: especially among the poor.

Cambodia's rural poor, who make up over 80 percent of the population, are particularly at risk from inflation. (Click here for the article)

These days, in Phnom Penh, you better keep a close eye on your dog.... and that's not really a joke. It's not desperate yet, but people are hungry. There's food available, of course, but not the money to buy it.

With that said, and for those with the money, there are some other challenges. Sanitation is maybe one of the big ones, and Holly wrote recently on buying vegetables in our neighborhood -

The city has several western-style grocery stores that we frequent to purchase hard-to-find foods such as cereal, butter, and spices we like to use (like cinnamon), but for many daily use items, we purchase them from people who live near us (across the street there are two different home-shops that sell things like oil, eggs, sugar, salt, detergent, etc). For this email I just want to tell about what happened this morning when I walked two streets over to buy vegetables.

The "shops" are set up on carts/platforms on the sidewalk in front of the seller's home. There is no refrigeration, and hygiene is a bit different than the US. At the shop I went to this morning, the table was spread with various vegetables, pineapple, raw meat and raw fish. There were quite a few flies buzzing around and landing on everything, especially the meat. The man in front of me was trying to purchase some slab of meat, and discussion was underway about how it should be cut or something. Since I was ready to purchase my two onions, two carrots, and one green pepper, the seller took the other man's slab of meat off the weighing tray and handed it to me to put my vegetables on. I did so, she set it on the scale, and then proceeded to weigh each type of vegetable separately. The ones that were waiting to be weighed were set aside right on top of the pile of slabs of raw beef. After all was weighed and I paid my 2600 reil (about 65 cents) for the vegetables, she tied them up in a plastic sack and gave them to me. I walked home and promptly washed the vegetables with soapy water and threw away the bag. So that is what it is like to buy vegetables here - not exactly sanitary, but easy enough and cheap.

I know some people recommend washing fruits and vegetables with soapy water anyway, to remove pesticides from the skin. Perhaps by the time we return from Cambodia, washing foods that way will have become an ingrained habit for me and we may be the healthier for it. For now, though, it remains a more basic survival strategy as I attempt to help my family avoid illness in a place where heat and sanitation make it more likely than I like.

But on the whole, I like eating in Cambodia. Pass the chili peppers, and I am pretty happy. Lots of Khmer food is really tasty and there's plenty of restaurants that cater to western tastes if you're willing to pay the cash.

Here are links to some of my favorite Khmer recipes so far (leaving out popular favorites like amok and luklak)-

Fried stuffed tomato

Ginger Chicken

Chicken and Lotus Soup

Beef Curry with Mango

Spicy Beef Soup

Plus, spring rolls and vegetarian pancakes.

And who can resist a custard filled pumpkin? Yum.