Wordful Wednesday

Back when I used to work with IDRC’s iREACH Project, I regularly visited one of our project sites in Prey Veng Province. To go there, I took a local taxi – usually an old Toyota camry – and takes about three hours or so. Halfway-point is Neak Loung, separated by only a 15minute ferry ride across the Mekong river to the main land of Prey Veng.

Every day, hundreds of taxis and buses arrive at Neak Loung, and they are always greeted by a swarm of vendors, old and young alike. They sell canned sodas, packed lunches, BBQed pork/chicken, candies, bottled water, boiled eggs, and a host of others.

Most girls (the age of the girl above) are not in school because they are tasked of helping their parents earn additional income for the family. The boys, however, are given priority in education simply due to cultural values, while the girls are kept at  home to help in the housework, looking after siblings, or, in this case, earn money for the family. Most parents here think that girls are going to get married and leave home anyway.

Sad, but true. This happens everywhere in the world, especially in third world countries.

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Above are the round and raised lotus blossoms but my Khmer friends call them seed “heads”. *Pods would have been the right word* The lotus seeds are inside and, yes, they are edible.

Lotus flowers not only adorn the altars of Khmer temples and shrines, they are also served in dishes at dinner tables. Lotus flowers are beautiful and trigger feelings of happiness and calm and they are also prized ingredients in Khmer cuisine. As a matter of fact, most of the lotus parts are edible, including the roots. They are often served as salads or an ingredient in Khmer soups and stir-fry dishes. Some adventurous cooks have incorporated lotus seeds in other dishes and baked products nowadays.

But today, it’s all about the seeds.

An average blossom has about 20-30 lotus seeds, above. They are green (when unripe) and rubbery, about the size of peanuts, edible and eaten like nuts. You can easily dig the seeds with your fingers when they are ripe.

Cambodians love to eat them fresh as snack when they are ripe. They pop it into their mouths like pop corns!

This is to show you what’s inside the seed. I sampled the fresh seeds and I couldn’t say I like or dislike it. It tasted like raw peanuts though, in case you want to know.

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