Although sausages are not a staple diet of Cambodians, the product of foreign lands has today become one of the many foods that symbolise the growing internationalisation of cuisines that have become common in the city, which was once the centre of the the Khmer Empire.
As dusk approaches in Siem Reap, street food stalls open to serve breakfast to early birds. Others, which serve the night owls are still operating in the wee hours of the morning. Hanging at the front of the eateries are long, red strings of pork and beef sausages, which are ordered with steamed white rice, porridge or baguettes.
On Street 51, Lunh Thib sells fried pork sausages. They consist of picante, a hot and spicy or sweet and savoury ground meat stuffed in pork intestines. For 2,000 riel ($0.50) a piece, it goes rather well with steamed rice and pickles.
The Temple Town native says it would be unusual for anyone who visits Siem Reap not to love the city’s signature sausages.
“It usually takes only two or three hours to sell out 1 kilogram of fried sausages. In the evening, locals and foreigners come to my stall to buy my fried rice with sliced sausage and eggs, and they tell me they love it,” she says.”
In nearby Phsar Chas Market, about a hundred stalls display thousands of strings of Siem Reap sausages, most of which are from local producers.
Prices range from $6.25 to $7.50 per kilogram. Visitors from Phnom Penh and other provinces in Cambodia usually go there to buy the sausages to take back home.
Hab Saly, a vendor at stall number 11, says she makes the sausages she sells using her family’s secret recipes that have been handed down over generations although one of her regular customers believes that her products are imported.
“There are several sausage suppliers in Siem Reap, most of which are family businesses. And each of them has its own recipes. “All our sausages are delicious, which make Siem Reap sausages more than what they are known for,” says Saly.
Lay Linh, the head chef at Grill Wine Café in Memoire D ‘Angkor Boutique Hotel, also tells the same story to The Post.
Although he could not tell when sausages were first introduced to Cambodia, he guesses that the meat products might have been introduced in the country by Chinese immigrants.
“The Germans and French also have sausages, but in Siem Reap sausage, I found some ingredient only used in Chinese food, such star anise and rice wine,” Linh says.
