Each year more than 200,000 tourists visit Luang Prabang in northern Laos. Most depart with memories of the UNESCO World Heritage site's orange-robed monks collecting alms at dawn, riverbanks glowing pink at sunset, and lanes lined with Buddhist temples, timber stilt-houses and colonial French villas. But few leave with an understanding of its cuisine.

"I think people are kind of stumped when it comes to Lao food, certainly Luang Prabang food," muses Australian Caroline Gaylard. She is enjoying the late-afternoon lull at Tamarind, the tiny restaurant specializing in authentic Luang Prabang cuisine that she runs with her Lao husband Joy Ngueamboupha. On their farm 20 minutes from town, Ngueanboupha also teaches visitors how to cook his native province's dishes (Luang Prabang city is the capital of the Lao province of the same name).

Featured on few menus abroad, overshadowed by the better-known specialties of its more visited neighbors (pad thai and pho may ring a bell, but what about mok?), and more often defined by what it isn't (not as spicy as Thai food, nor as refined as Vietnamese) than what it is, Lao's is the mystery cuisine of Southeast Asia.

The former Lao royal seat of Luang Prabang is considered the country's culinary heart. Sited on a peninsula formed by the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, it was an ancient point of intra-continental trade and part of French Indochina for over 50 years. Baguettes and coffee, Vietnamese dishes such as pho and banh cuon (steamed rice flour dumplings filled with pork and mushrooms), and Burmese and northern Thai-influenced kao soi, noodle soup enriched with a ragu-esque pork and tomato mince -- all these show the foreign culinary infuences on the city.

But Luang Prabang cuisine is primarily local, rooted in the city's proximity to what were once the largest and most productive rice fields in all of Laos, to the jungle carpeting (to a lessening degree, thanks to recent deforestation) the hills on its edges, and to the waters of the Mekong, Nam Khan and their tributaries.

"The food here is hot, salty and often bitter -- the flavors are fresh and bold," says Gaylard, adding that as in the rest of relatively poor Laos, cooking in Luang Prabang is about "making use of what you've got."

She offers as an example or lam, a deliciously hearty eggplant-based meat and vegetable stew that's thickened with toasted glutinous rice and often made with the meat and skin of water buffalo, which are still used to till fields. Or lam is spicy from fresh chilies and sakan, a woody stem foraged from nearby forests, and derives its depth of flavor from padek, an odiferous condiment made of fermented river fish. It's packed with herbs and vegetables -– string beans, usually, along with whatever is in season and favored by the cook.

A stroll through Luang Prabang's largest morning market brings Gaylard's observations into perspective. The center of the market, open to the sky, is occupied by women and a few men doing business from wooden tables and bits of pavement covered with plastic. The air is suffused with the punchy greenness of the herbs -- mint, cilantro, anise-y Thai basil, dill, culantro, scallions -- and leafy vegetables (watercress, lettuces, water spinach, a vine called pak tam ling and pakkat, a family of mustard) that predominate in local dishes. They're cooked, of course, but also eaten raw in large quantities at every meal. Some of the leaves are shockingly bitter; others, like fleshy-leafed som pon and delicate mimosa leaf, impart sourness to soups.

Eggplants of every size and style

Eggplants are a mainstay of Luang Prabang dishes; Gaylard reckons that there are over 100 varieties. Green golfball-sized eggplants thicken or lam, short purple Japanese eggplants -- together with long green chilies -- are grilled, peeled, and pounded into dips called jaew; small round white eggplants are boiled and eaten with fishy jaew, and pea-size eggplants are added to soups and eaten raw.

Puffs of smoke signal a water buffalo "satay" vendor; the meat is tough but the persistent chewer is rewarded with a beefier-than-beef richness. Luang Prabang cooks adore the extra layer of concentrated flavor that grilling gives meat and vegetables. Meat intended for long-cooked dishes such as or lam is often lightly barbecued first, and every market has one or more vendors selling charred fish, various cuts of pork (and pork offal), and chickens ready to take home and eat with jaew and glutinous or sticky rice, Laos' favored starch. At the entrance to the market, several shops selling everything needed to outfit a Luang Prabang kitchen (knives, mortars and pestles, chopping blocks) prominently display charcoal braziers made of clay that are used as grills or single-burner stoves.

Inside the dark market building is evidence of the ingenuity that results from the need to preserve foods. There are bags of kai pen -- river algae that's been pounded, spread on rattan trays, seasoned with sesame seeds and bits of tomato and dried in the sun -- ready to deep-fry or grill and eat with jaew bong, a spicy-sweet Luang Prabang jaew made with rehydrated buffalo skin. There are dried mushrooms fried with chilies, shallots and wild lime leaves (a perfect beer snack), and discs of tua nao (mashed, salted and dried soybeans) that add umami and body to stews and stir-fries. Stalls devoted entirely to padek, which can be sniffed out three yards away, display 10 tubs of varying strengths and consistencies.

"Luang Prabang cooks waste nothing," says Gaylard, leading the way into the meat section. This slippery-floored part of the market is not for the faint-hearted, but a meander among its aisles drives Gaylard's point home. Every single part of the pig is sold here including the animal's blood, in liquid form (to add to soups or stir into chopped raw meat laab) or in jelly-like cakes. Under a USAID poster outlining proper hygiene practices, a table displays hunks of beef -- and a whole cow fetus. In the water buffalo section are bags of greenish bile, which is used to tenderize the animal's chewy meat.

Unfamiliar and sometimes "challenging" ingredients aside, Luang Prabang cuisine is accessible to most palates. In Tamarind's hands-on cooking classes Ngueamboupha teaches students to transform grilled vegetables and chillies into jaew reminiscent of Mexican salsas. Or lam would appeal to any lover of comforting meat and vegetable stews, and mok -- fish coated in a paste of lemongrass, shallots, chilies and dill and steamed in banana leaf, is an intriguing play of Southeast Asian and Western flavors. The dishes only hint at what Luang Prabang has to offer the curious eater, but judging from the ever-packed tables at Tamarind, its cuisine strikes a chord.

"If you're the kind of person who's really into food you should come to Luang Prabang," enthuses Gaylard. "The food here is really different to anything you've eaten before."

Mok

(adapted from Tamarind Cooking School recipe)

Serves 2

This delicious steamed fish in banana leaf distinguishes itself from similar dishes found elsewhere in Southeast Asia (Cambodian amok, Thai hawmawk, and Penang-style otak-otak) by its lack of coconut milk and incorporation of dill, an herb that appears often in Luang Prabang dishes.

The most difficult part of mok is probably learning to make the banana leaf packet; once you've mastered it, this step goes quickly. The paste takes less than 10 minutes to make, and after that it's just time in a steamer. If you can't find banana leaves (often sold frozen at Southeast Asian groceries) Joy Ngueamboupha suggests substituting large blanched napa cabbage leaves.

Ingredients

Directions

1. Place the salt in a mortar, add the garlic clove, and pound to a paste (you can also use a mini-chopper or blender)
2. Add the lemongrass, pound to a rough paste. Follow with the chilies, shallots, scallions and dill, adding them one by one and pounding after each addition.
3. Add the lime leaves and pound each once or twice, just to bruise.
4. Stir in the glutinous rice starch.
5. Add the fish fillets and turn them in the paste to coat.
6. Soften the banana leaf pieces by moving them slowly, shiny side down, about 2 inches above a gas or electric burner. The dull side of the leaf will become shiny, indicating it's soft.
7. To assemble the banana leaf packets, lay 2 pieces side-by-side vertically, overlapping in the middle by about 2 inches.
8. Place a fish fillet in the middle, vertically, and place a stem or two of dill.
9. With one hand slide the leaves into your other hand. The fish should be resting in your palm lengthwise.
10. Bring both long sides of the leaf up over the fish and use your thumb and pinkie to loosely hold them in place.
11. Starting with the part of the leaves closest to you, push the unfolded part up and toward the leaves' center, then fold each of the resulting side "wings" forward to close the packet. Repeat the same procedure at the other end.
12. Use a toothpick (or two) to secure the packet at the top by threading it from one side of the banana leaves through the other.
13. Steam for 20 minutes, then serve with sticky or plain white rice and a simple jaew (recipe below).

Eggplant Jaew

Ingredients

Directions

1. Pound salt to a rough paste with garlic and chili. Add scallion and cilantro, pounding after each addition, and finish with eggplant. You should have a chunky puree. (Or, roughly puree all ingredients in a food processor.)

Robyn Eckhardt is a Kuala Lumpur-based writer who covers food, travel and historic preservation for Travel + Leisure and Wall Street Journal Asia. She has also contributed to the Chicago Tribune, Budget Travel and other publications.

Photo at top: Chilies drying. Credit: David Hagerman
Slideshow: David Hagerman

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Just a few notes, based on my experiences, to toss into the stew below:

Most jeow bongs I've had across Laos are somewhat sweet, and most (but not all) of the recipes I have call for sugar. I prefer salty jeows without the sweetness, so I actually tend to avoid jeow bong. But I did find a few versions in Phongsali and northern Luang Prabang province that weren't sweet at all.

On language and origins, I find it extremely challenging to discern the relationships between/among terms from region to region because of such variation in tone and pronunciation. For example, in Shan State, we were told of a term that sounded like "khao soiy" with a rising tone = soup; and "khao suoey" with falling tone = "washing," meaning any rice-based foods that had been rinsed. We were also told "khao soy" with low tone = soup with key ingredients of tomato, fried garlic and chile. It was also called "sweet soup." All of the above terms were spoken and understood to mean distinctly different things to the locals, but they sounded very similar to my ears.

Likewise, to my ears, the Khmer term "amok" sounds similar to the Thai term "hormak" but different from the Lao word "mok." That's why I'd be curious to know whether all those terms are indeed related.

a guest , August 10, 2010

Katy said--

It’s hardly surprising you dismissed it by examples of Indonesia (and the Philippines) – the country of thousands (inhabited) islands. If it takes a couple of centuries to ‘influence’ one island - intermarriage, cooking technique and all that. But I take your point. (I never set out not to!)

I, however, do have an issue with indigenous dishes – but that may come from my ignorance of how cuisines of Austronesians ethnic groups are classified by food scholars. Shouldn’t they be treated in entity? Of course there are regional ingredients and influences – curry and chilli etc. But there are common indigenous specialties, such as bamboo tube rice, fermented/preserved meat methods, pickled animal intestines? I don’t see how indigenous cuisines can be thrown into a discussion on the ‘Chinese’ influence in Asia, for example?

(Austronesians peoples are such as those of Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Madagascar and Oceania)

a guest , August 09, 2010

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Thanks Naomi and Katy (unsigned, but I know who you are! ) for these comments. Nothing much to add to yours Naomi except to answer that the jaew bong we ate at Tamarind was indeed a little sweet, also very hot, and yes with bits of buffalo skin. A little sticky, Quite reminiscent, actually, of a sweet-hot sticky nam prik we bought at Warorot Market in Chiang Mai, sold with sadaw and incredibly bitter flowering herb. I love bitter but I couldn't handle sadaw.

Katy - I suspect you set out merely to rattle my chains but I'll play.

If you really believe that 'There are only two kinds of cuisine in Asia – China’s and Greater China’s' then may I assume you believe that people in Southeast Asia were eating nothing but foraged herbs and raw meat before Chinese arrived on the scene? Chinese culinary influence in the region is huge, of course. But it's not the only influence and there are plenty of indigenous dishes out there. Where to start? Perhaps with Indonesian rendang and Philippine kinilaw. Chinese influence? Not a whit. It may be called the Middle Kingdom but it's not the progenitor of everything eaten today in Asia!

An aside -- koay teow is not the 'general term' for noodles in Thai -- it refers to rice noodles (aka koay teow in Malaysia) only. Ba mee=egg noodles (obviously a name derived from the Chinese) and kanom jeen are vermicelli made from ground fermented rice identical to Cambodian num banchok.

Lao Cuisine Info's comments were not at all unwelcome. It was the tone I took issue with. If one wishes to engage in discussion (rather than merely lecturing) then phrases like "If you actually learned more about ..." are generally pretty counterproductive.

a guest , August 08, 2010

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There are only two kinds of cuisine in Asia – China’s and Greater China’s (that includes all the rest), so what is it to argue?

Lao Cuisine Information : Your comments might be prickly and ‘unwelcoming’ in some parts—I don’t find you angry but brilliantly uppity! You have got me interested in knowing a bit more about Lao in general more than any book or tourist board have ever done! I am not young, but I’d like to think myself as open-minded by the way.

There are more than one reason why a cuisine is ‘under-rated’ and lacking general public’s awareness and there are just as many reasons why ‘marketing’ a cuisine could not have or would not have worked as well as Singapore’s. The ‘responsibility’ lies in several more other people than one tourist board.

I agree with whoever have commented on the ‘origin’ that it is nerdy food historians’ job to study precise origin of a food. For me personally, it is far more interesting to know the background and history of a food which reflects a regional context as Naomi commented. I am also interested in food in a cultural context – such as names can sometimes give indications of the history and perhaps ‘origin’ or history of a food or dish. For example: Guokui a type of flatbread originated in Sichuan, in China indicates that it is griddled (on hot metal). Spring rolls originated form a thin pastry used to wrap up a variety of ingredients for offering of Spring God in China’s agricultural society. In terms of common ‘loanwords’ of a dish for example: derivation of names of dumpling in Central Asia Mandu, Manti, gives an indication of the origin of this type of ‘wheat’ dish. And here, in my opinion, the same with Khao Soi/Kao Soi.

This link explains the Hokkien term for ‘Rice noodle’ – Kue Tiau, which is now a general term for noodles in Thai. I speak Minnan/ (Hokkien broadly) and Kue means ‘product made of rice’ and Tiau means’ strips’ as in sliced/cut into. It also explains Kue Tiau is a great example of Hokkien/Minnan vocabulary that has been borrowed into many languages including in Vietnam.

http://chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7922

I am ready for ‘food heavyweights’ to dismiss me –but this is my thoughts :Based on the link and Robyn’s explanation of the term Kao Soi (Rice Cut) – essentially Kue Tiau, Kao Soi and Khao Soi have the same meaning. I can think of a Minnan pronounce more like ‘Choi’ which means cut. Since Kue Tiau is used in Thai for noodles; it makes more sense to me that Khao Soi is ‘borrowed’ from Burmese Shan dish Kao Soi to use it for a different kind of noodle dish. I would be more prepared to accept that the origin lies in Shan’s – it has found its way to Lao (prepared in their own style) but made its name in Chiang-Mai as the iconic Khao Soi – in the form of local derivation egg noodles and coconut milk or whatever the Thai influences had on the ingredients.
Katy

a guest , August 07, 2010

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What an intense set of comments already! Robyn, congrats on a fine peice, compressing a lot of info and insight into few words.
The person commenting about Lao food being as fabulous or more so than other SE Asia cuisines is clearly a Lao food lover, and that's great. It's really important not to resent other people's opinions or ignorance, but to tolerate them, and understand that most poeple are well intentioned and just trying to learn. So if people compare Lao to Thai or Viet or whatever cooking, it's just because they are working within the limited frm of reference they have. Feel badly for them,,perhaps, but don't be angry!!!

On bitter, chile-hot etc and which cuisine is more this or that: generalisations about food and culture are always risky. We use them to give a general impression, but they have limited truth value, of course. I agree with the Lao food booster that much of Lao cuisine is very "hot" - it is the same as Issan food (NE Thai) which is in its origins primarily Lao, of course.
"Mok" eisits in Cambodia too, and I think arguably comes from there as a technique, given that the Khmer had a royal/fancy culinary culture before the Lao did. But like all food history questions, my stab at this is open to debate and to being contradicted. The origins of Khao soi are a similar question: and why argue? Can we not jsut say that they reflect a regional context? After all, in Chiang Mai people will tell you that khao soi is Yunnanese, came with the "Haw" or moslim Yunnanese traders. maybe it did, but that's hard to connect to the coconut muilk in it. Maybe they brought it after learning it in northern Burma from the Shan? or? It's fascinating to speculate, but dangerous to get angry about another view or attached to a particular explanation; how can we know these things for sure, after all?
And on a specific question, Robyn, you mention jaew bong has chile hot and sweet, but I never had a sweet one; it's a fab "salsa-ish" chile condiment, with its little bits of buff skin for chewiness.

I always like to think that Hot Sour Salty Sweet, now ten years old, helped get some peole aware of the richness of Lao cooking. There's so much more to learn though, so go to it!!! (and that is addressed to travellers and eaters of ALL AGES!!)
naomi duguid

a guest , August 07, 2010

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I'm thrilled to see that this article has generated some discussion, even if some of it is a bit prickly.nnTo Lao Cuisine Information: nnThanks for taking the time to read and comment on my article.nnI have lived in SE Asia for almost 9 yrs and have been seriously writing abt its cuisines for 5. While I am certainly no expert (nor do I foresee ever being one), I like to think I am a careful researcher. I love discussions about food origins -- but I do find that they are always more fruitful when the participants speak to each other as equals.nnI think that the origins of Chiang Mai-style kao soi lie in Shan Burmese kao soi ... which is different from N Lao kao soi. I outline the dish's history as I understand it here: http://online.wsj.com/article/...63913.html I'm certainly open to considering N Lao origins if you can offer some convincing evidence. nnYou are obviously a Lao food booster, which is great. But by describing Thai and Vietnamese cuisines nothing more than innovations on Chinese, Burmese, etc -- aren't you doing to them what many people do to Lao cuisine by describing it as "not quite Thai, not quite Vietnamese?"nBoth Viet and Thai cuisines -- like Lao, as you point out -- are very regional. Chinese influence is seen in N Viet dishes, less so in southern and central dishes. The influences in Thai cuisine are myriad (Chinese influence is most widely seen in noodle dishes and the technique of stir-frying; although it's worth noting that Thailand's most famous stir-fried noodle dish, pad thai, is a govt-sponsored invention from the 1st half of the 20th century). And of course there are dishes in both cuisines that are purely of local invention.nnAn aside -- no assumptions about the open-mindedness of tourists based on age, please! Thanks again for your comments.nnTo the previous commenter:nnThanks for your comment. I agree completely -- for Asian cuisines anyway marketing is the crux of the matter when it comes to general awareness of a cuisine. There's no better example than Singapore. -- Robyn Eckhardt

a guest , August 06, 2010

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to the previous commenter:

if khao soi was burmese in origin, doesn't that make it a burmese dish rather than a northern lao dish?

if you actually learned more about south east asian cuisine, or really any cuisine for that matter, you would realise that food is regional. same-same, but different. it's ridiculous to be claiming certain dishes as "belonging" to certain countries; because of our geographical proximities there will always been mutual influences on our cuisines. there really is no reason to categorise these dishes into nationalities other than national pride.

so in the end it's all in the marketing. that is why singapore, while having a smaller variety and quality of street food, is able to build a better food reputation globally than malaysia. in the same way, people think about thai/viet cuisines when they taste lao cuisine, because the thai and vietnamese got their food out into the world first. unfortunate, but that's the way it is. not happy? do something about it - get more people to visit laos or plant more laos restaurants globally. i don't think it's actually "up to the younger generation", if by that you mean the younger generation of tourists. tourists have no obligation to lao cuisine. shouldn't the responsibility lie with the lao people?

a guest , August 06, 2010

Lao cuisine information

Thanks for writing this article. However, I would like to share some things with you.

Kao Soi is actually a northern Lao dish that found its way into Northern Thailand. It is derived from a Burmese dish, but it first arrived in Laos before immigrants brought it over to northern Thailand.

I also hope you realize that Thai cuisine is made up of dishes that were originally Chinese, Lao, Burmese, Indian, Malaysian, and Indonesian cuisines. If you actually learned more about Thai cuisine, you will realize that most of the dishes you considered as Thai didn't even originate in Thailand. Even Vietnamese cuisine is primarily made up of Chinese dishes with some influences from Laos and Cambodia.

I think foreigners are being harder on Laos only because they had discovered Vietnamese and Thai cuisines first. I guarantee that if foreigners had visited Laos before discovering Thailand, then Thailand would be the one that gets compared to Laos with Lao cuisine being the reference. That's just a part of human nature in which people tend to always assume that whichever cuisine they had discovered first would be the more original cuisine, which is actually further from the truth. Many westerners have tried Larb/Laap salad, not realizing that it actually originated in Laos and is a traditional Lao dish. But naturally, tourists would assume that Laos got the dish from Thailand, when in fact it was Thailand that adopted Larb/Laap from Laos.

Education is the key here. It might already be too late for the older tourists to be more open-minded and stop comparing other cuisines to Lao cuisine. Therefore, it's now up to the younger generation to grow up experiencing Lao cuisine without any biases, then they will learn what true Lao cuisine is about and will be able to notice dishes in Thailand and Vietnam that actually came from Laos instead of incorrectly assuming that they were originally Thai or Vietnamese dishes.

Anyway, Luang Prabang is just one region in Laos. Other Lao regions have their own taste preferences. Luang Prabang cuisine is not as spicy as the other Lao regional cuisines. Lao cuisine as a whole is actually quite spicy. Even Thai people have said that Lao people eat spicier than Thai people. You just have to visit the other regions of Laos in order to truly experience "Lao" cuisine rather than just one single city that is Luang Prabang.

a guest , August 05, 2010

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Karen, Thanks for the comment, and also the one you left on our blog's Facebook page. For anyone else reading -- the Phia Sing that Karen mentions was the chef for Luang Prabang's royal family. His recipes are gathered in the wonderful book 'Traditional Recipes of Laos', edited by Alan and Jennifer Davidson.

Bridget - thank you! Look for more from us here on Zester Daily. "Nomlicious" -- I like that.

a guest , August 04, 2010

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I wholeheartedly second the recommendation for Tamarind's cooking class. It's one of few in the region to give a genuine hands-on real-life look at the cuisine.

And mok - what a wonderful dish. So many varieties, too. I'm fascinated by the evolution of this term, which actually describes a cooking method. The late Phia Sing, who had been chef at the Luang Prabang Royal Palace, noted "mok" as a method of searing or cooking by placing the food directly into the embers and ashes of a charcoal fire. That food may or may not be wrapped in banana leaf, he wrote. But these days, many people use "mok" to describe just about anything cooked in banana leaf (and even my Lao-English dictionary defines mok in that way). It's food evolution, in progress. In any case, Phia Sing had some great recipes for various moks, including fish roe, padek and freshwater stingray. Makes me want to head to the Mekong right now.

a guest , August 04, 2010

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WOW! Love your blog and your pictures!!!

Breathtaking and nomlicious. Thank you!!

Bridget [The Internet Chef]

a guest , August 04, 2010