Meet the Chef Reviving Royal Cambodian Recipes

Inspired by a trailblazing princess, Chef Nak’s cookbook is a celebration of Khmer history.

In 1960, Princess Samdech Preah Reach Kanitha Norodom Rasmi Sobbhana published one of the first definitive texts on her country’s cuisine. L’Art de la cuisine cambodgienne, or The Culinary Art of Cambodia, was an extensively researched, beautifully illustrated tome years in the making. It came at a pivotal moment, just seven years after Cambodia declared independence, when the nation was fighting to codify an identity beyond that of its former French-colonial rulers.

Only a few years after the princess’s death in 1971, civil war ripped Khmer society apart. The Khmer Rouge, under the leadership of Prime Minister Pol Pot, purged Cambodia’s artists and intellectuals, along with records that detailed much of what came before “Year Zero” on April 17, 1975. Copies of The Culinary Art of Cambodia all but vanished.

Nearly half a century later, Rotanak Ros, better known as Chef Nak, has dedicated her career to preserving and reclaiming thousands of years of Khmer culinary history. After leaving her position at a nonprofit organization in 2017, Ros traveled throughout the Cambodian countryside documenting recipes from home cooks that culminated in her 2019 cookbook, Nhum: Recipes from a Cambodian Kitchen.

In full: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/chef-nak-saoy-royal-cambodian-home-cuisine-cookbook

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