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The Khmer I know rather personally seem not to venture outside their comfort zone of eating other ethnic foods. From my personal (limited) obsevation not even Thai or VN dishes. Forget having a burger & fries, or tacos, or a wienerschnitzel or even curries.
I mad duck-ala-orange with a duck breast from Dans Meats. It was damn good. My SO's only replied that it was not Cambodian. There have been other similar instances.

My question is for those that have a wider circle of Cambodian friends.
What has been your experience on this topic

Generally true I believe. However, my wife who can really cook excellent Khmer dishes will, when pressed for time, cook what I call backyard soup. Usually a handful of small fish with leaves and native veggies from our backyard. Nutritious, but boring.

At those moments I introduced Mexican and Italian dishes that they all love. Especially with garlic bread.

Luigi wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2017 8:05 pm The Khmer I know rather personally seem not to venture outside their comfort zone of eating other ethnic foods. From my personal (limited) obsevation not even Thai or VN dishes. Forget having a burger & fries, or tacos, or a wienerschnitzel or even curries.
I mad duck-ala-orange with a duck breast from Dans Meats. It was damn good. My SO's only replied that it was not Cambodian. There have been other similar instances.

My question is for those that have a wider circle of Cambodian friends.
What has been your experience on this topic

i do have some friends that quite like a burger, hotdog or something, or have even had friends ask me to cook them up one of my pasta dishes to give to them

i did once try giving some of my italian pasta that i had just cooked to a girl who popped round to see me but hated it as it was too rich in flavour for her and she just wanted to eat crab lol

i got some friends i know who love Thai food

but agree most just prefer having the plain simple province style dishes that foreigners usually only see in the roadside restaurants on the highways n stuff (not your chicken amok or your beef loc lac etc)

funny. I had a khmer friend try potato salad... it wasn' t the best honestly. i just tried to make from scratch.. He liked it..

Invited a Khmer friend and his family for a western meal, served a classic roast, wasn't enjoyed - not enough chili. Made no effort to hide the dislike, not sure how I feel about that.

You're probably right in that they don't often venture beyond familiar foods. However, outside of the local specialties many of the dishes here do have Chinese/Vietnamese roots. Most of the seafood/ noodle/ dumpling places that are frequented by the better-off here are Chinese rather than Cambodian cuisine.
As for food from further away, many of the Cham friends I have here like Malaysian food. Then there are a few that can enjoy Indian food, but that's a bit more rare. I wish the whole of SE Asia just went for variations on Indian food. I'd be quite happy with that.

Western food that has had some success with Khmer friends - dried sausage and salami, spicy olives, all sorts of fish paste, cheese and crackers. Industrial biscuits and sweet cakes.
Pizza always seems to work ok. Especially pizza with loads of toppings, sweet tomato sauce with mince or any sort of meat. Some of my family from upcountry only tasted their first pizza recently, but it is a big hit, even with the kids.

Mostly unsuccessful - pasta dishes in general, cream or butter sauces, and (good) dark chocolate.
And Marmite. Lol.

John Bingham wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2017 10:33 pm You're probably right in that they don't often venture beyond familiar foods. However, outside of the local specialties many of the dishes here do have Chinese/Vietnamese roots. Most of the seafood/ noodle/ dumpling places that are frequented by the better-off here are Chinese rather than Cambodian cuisine.
As for food from further away, many of the Cham friends I have here like Malaysian food. Then there are a few that can enjoy Indian food, but that's a bit more rare. I wish the whole of SE Asia just went for variations on Indian food. I'd be quite happy with that.

yup correct that, even the infamous Cambodian Loc Lac is originally a Vietnamese dish

I fed my neighbours swedish meatballs and an english style chilli con carne, they ate that shit up. They still bizarrely feel the need to dunk everything they eat in sauce, the food they eat is so terribly oily and salty, but lacks any seasoning. The bitter weeds I can't be dealing with. That's why I do all the cooking. I made spag bol for my extended family here, their boy couldn't eat it without rice. So he had spag bol and a side of rice. Fucking white rice all the time, three times a day, you can spot the barangs at a dinner when there's piles of rice left on the plate. But they will try stuff, they'll just dunk it in pepper or sweet chilli out of habit.

This is definitely true and something I noticed when I first came here as well. I out it down to them not being exposed to the outside world as we (often) are. My mom would cook rice at times, and going to restaurants which served foreign food with friends was rather common. Around 50% of the students from my highschool were either immigrants or children of immigrants. We all grew up eating various foods from all over the world. I reckon if you're exposed young enough, your taste buds adapt and grow to like more things. 98% of Khmers have never been exposed to foreign food besides Chinese and regional food and perhaps burgers and pizza (which they seem to think we all eat every day back home). The new generation is way more cosmopolitan, if I can use that word. The more adventurous ones are willing to try more foods and have often grown up eating a more diverse diet (and getting fatter in the process). Basically, I think those who are exposed to different kinds of food from a young age enjoy a wider variety of food while those brought up on a strict Khmer diet usually can't eat anything but rice and Khmer food, or at the very least they'll be way fussier. It's possible to change that by exposing them to other good, but harder.