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Soleakhena So, far left, an MCC worker in Olinalá, Mexico, passes on the food traditions of her native Cambodia in cooking classes encouraging students to eat more vegetables. Participants include, from left to right, Andrey Pérez Sánchez, Rita Sánchez Ponce, Olinca Jiménez Gómez, Adelina Hernández Franco and Margarita Romano Franco. Cambodian cooking in Southern Mexico
Marla Pierson Lester The ingredients on the table onion, carrot and cumin are common in Southern Mexico. The Asian carrot salad the group works to prepare is not. In Olinalá and surrounding villages, MCC worker Soleakhena So uses the traditions of her native Cambodia's cuisine to entice women's groups to move beyond the beans, tortillas and meat that are common staples. "I want to encourage them to eat more vegetables," she said. "Here, people eat a lot of meat." In a kitchen in Olinalá, chatter fills the room as the group works together to prepare carrot salad and a stir fry with meat and vegetables. Soleakhena teaches five groups in the city, two in a nearby city and three in outlying villages. Each group, made up primarily of women, meets twice a month, learning to prepare a main dish and a salad. She remembers how during her first workshop in a small village outside Olinalá, she prepared a green papaya salad. The women were delighted. They not only liked the taste, but grew lots of papaya and had no way to use the fruit that fell from the tree before it was ripe. The lessons Soleakhena teaches are rooted in family tradition. "I learned from my mom, my sisters. I don't have recipes. I just know what to put in there," she said. But for the class, she translates each into Spanish and has participants copy it out. They then prepare each dish and eat together at the end of class. "The food doesn't have as much fat or oil. In just one plate, you get a complete meal," said Ricarda Sánchez Rodríguez. "Here in Mexico, we have a lot of separate dishes beans, rice, salsa. In this food, everything goes together." Participants say their families are enjoying the recipes they have learned and that they've enjoyed learning about the food of another culture. And as they chop vegetables for Asian salads or watch as a stir fry cooks on the stove, they chat, catch up with each other and joke. "We like it a lot," said Rita Sánchez Ponce. "There's lots of laughter, a moment in the day to be together."
Marla Pierson Lester is a writer for MCC. |
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