We just had 27 Khmer stay here last night and they ate me completely out of Hamburgers and fries. That was 33 burgers and 5kg of fries!
My missus eats most barang food I cook, but it did take a while for her to get the taste for it.
Generally you are right though, these two examples are the exception to the rule I think.

All of my family 30 and younger (about 20 people) will try anything, and generally like most generic foreign foods. Spaghetti, sushi, fish and chips, hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, pork chops, American southwest style ribs, Indian curry, cheese, steak...lots of things. They love their rice, but many of them don't need it.

One thing I've noticed though here is that sometimes the Khmer I know tend to overload their food (with sugar, oil, salt, flavour, spices), almost to the point of it being inedible most of the time for me.

GF eats most things if there's enough chili sauce, but she really hates spaghetti.


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^^Question, when you say she hates spaghetti, what kind of spaghetti? Because I haven't found a plate of spaghetti in Cambodia that I liked, but if I cook my own spaghetti my family and I enjoy it.

Same goes for a lot of foreign food here actually. I like hamburgers, but I hate Lucky burger, Burger King, etc.

Do you happen to not like spaghetti here because the sauce happens to be really sweet? Or...? Pasta?

All of the above. Sauce is way too sweet, no hint of herbs like basil, thyme, oregano...anything, and the pasta is typically flavourless and sticky, sometimes very squishy. Last plate of spaghetti I tried here had a bunch of sliced carrots on top, not sure what that was about.

Growing up one of my friends was 1st generation American (from Italy), so his mum always made sure Italian food was done the Italian way. I've never been to Italy, but the way she cooked seemed to emphasize more tomato, herbs plus cheese (real cheese, not the powdered shit), and olive oil on the pasta to give everything a real fresh natural taste. She almost never seemed to use sugar or salt if I recall and I suspect adding gobs of sugar and tomato paste in the sauce would have been a bit of a no no.

So that's what I'm used to in terms of Italian food, no idea if it's authentic, but it's way too dissimilar from the stuff here for me to enjoy the Cambodian version as Italian food.

Btw, I've only tried Khmer versions of spaghetti from maybe 4 different places, I've not been to any upscale Italian places to eat out.

sushi and steak are great hits with Khmer.

" if I recall and I suspect adding gobs of sugar and tomato paste in the sauce would have been a bit of a no no."

Yeah, my experience with ethnic Italian food was in Monterey, Ca. where there is a large community of American-Italians. Sugar was only added (and certainly not gobs) if the sugar content of the tomatoes was weak. The sauce was made from tomatoes that were fried not boiled. Nothing came from a can.

You are better off using tomatoes from a can and sweetening it with tomato paste than the crap they grow here. I suspect that's why a lot of the pasta sauces are sugary sweet. The worst is when they use sweet tomato sauce on the pizzas, bleurgh. I've not seen passata, or if I have it's been to stupidly expensive to bother with. That would be my ideal, after proper Italian toms. Tomatoes are certainly worthwhile growing at home, if you are looking after chickens properly then you should have a mound of chicken shit you have shovelled away from your coops that works wonders on them.

AE86 wrote:^^Question, when you say she hates spaghetti, what kind of spaghetti? Because I haven't found a plate of spaghetti in Cambodia that I liked, but if I cook my own spaghetti my family and I enjoy it.

Same goes for a lot of foreign food here actually. I like hamburgers, but I hate Lucky burger, Burger King, etc.

This was spaghetti cooked at home, she hates it. Denies it's the same as noodles.


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