Memorable season for prahok

Meach Toch spent the last few days preparing prahok, a popular Cambodian dish made of fermented fish, in Kandal province’s Kampong Luong commune. As she starts packing her belongings, getting ready to leave the area where hundreds of farmers gather every year to make prahok, she talks about her experience concocting the pungent-smelling paste.

“It has been a great year for making prahok,” she says as she puts items of clothing in her bag. “The price of fish has been lower than last year, and we have had much more fish.” As a result, she has been able to make nearly 70 kilograms of the savoury dish, which she will enjoy at home with her family. Satisfied with her work and with the amount of prahok she will be bringing back, she starts on her way back home to Kampong Speu province, joining a caravan of about 20 neighbours riding two-wheel tractors.

She was right to heed the advice of the Fisheries Administration, which recently announced the time was ripe for those in the prahok and the pha-ak – another fermented fish product – business, with the first phase of a memorable fishing season coming to an end earlier this week, on December 27. She is far from being the only one happy with the results of this year’s gathering at Kampong Luong commune. Speaking to us while she cleans a big fish with the help of a knife, Pok Kim, also from Kampong Speu province, echoed the same sentiments.

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