Local Laotian Food

Lovely Laos citizens kindly shared some food with me. 

A snack food in Laos: raw green mango and cumquats dipped in chili paste.

 

Noodle soup is a common dish. There were dark, cooked-down greens contrasting with fresh herbs, and soft noodles occasionally countered by crisp bean sprouts. But, the best thing about this soup was the scrumptious chili-peanut paste sitting all pretty on top. The spice of the chilies and fat from the peanut balanced very well.

It is my understanding that, in Laos, no matter what ethnic group one comes from, one eats communally.

It goes down like this: You get your own bowl and spoon. And, you otherwise eat with your hands. Grab a large chunk of rice from the steaming basket, keeping it in one hand while pinching off smaller bits, forming it into a little ball, and then dipping it into dishes to pick up other yummy bits. Indeed, you can walk down the street and see local people eating in exactly this way. (Geesh, I’m nosy!)

Anywho, the dishes on the table are as follows: 

-A basket of purple-ish rice.

-A bowl of green long beans in some sort of soy-like sauce.

-Wilted cabbage in a savory sauce, although our eating companion Mr. Nii said the tomato was a bit abnormal for Laotian food.

-The two little bowls were a dipping paste that tasted sort of like pico de gallo, minus the citrus and onion. It was very good.

-The other dishes were a fish dish and some other meat dish that I obviously didn't eat.

-The thing that looks like fish bones is actually bamboo shoot soup.

 

I was super excited to read about fried river algae before I departed. Then, the opportunity arose to actually eat some.

Let's back up here, and discuss how it is prepared. It is pulled out of some river somewhere, harvested with who knows what kind of method, perhaps in a way that strips whole banks of habitat. It is then dried in the sun, formed into flat pieces, and fried. Maybe it is adorned with some sesame seeds; maybe it’s seasoned with some slivers of garlic during the frying process...

The point is that it tastes like kale chips. (Because I know that is precisely what you’ve been thinking since you read what the description of the photo.) It tastes dark and a little bitter. You bite into it and wonder why you ate that, but then the aftertaste leaves you wanting more. So you have another, and another, and try not to think about the toxins you are ingesting.

Yeah, I know I shouldn’t have eaten it. Especially given all the things I know about toxins in Asian rivers, I knew I shouldn’t eat it. Sure, it is fried, and thus one need not worry about biological threats, but think of the industrial runoff upstream and the fact that detergent sulfates and etcetera run directly into the river from the developing country sewage system.

Why in fuck's sake did I do it?! WHY?!

But the NOVELTY! The novelty--I could not resist it. I mean, I ate the equivalent of pond scum. Isn't that exciting?! 

Also in this series: savory meals I ate in LPB, Indian food I ate in LPB, and food I ate at LPB's veg*n restaurant.