Starling Farms outside of Kampot, Cambodia, grows and harvests by
hand the black, red, and white pepper that has become a culinary
delicacy among chefs around the world.
A
Cambodian worker in a traditional headscarf hoes among the pepper
towers at Starling Farms pepper plantation near Kampot, Cambodia.
Owen Thomas
“Bong – how much farther?” Our oldest son, Roswell, was asking our
tuktuk driver how much longer we’d be bouncing along this potholed dirt
road somewhere in Cambodia. In Khmer (pronounced “k’MAI,”), you address any male older than you as “bong”: it means “older brother.”
Closeup
of pepper berries. Harvested by hand, the green ones will be picked and
sun-dried,which will turn them black. The red berry at the bottom will
either be dried to make red pepper or the outer skin will be removed by
soaking in water to make white pepper.
A visitor offers a video tour of the Starling Farms pepper plantation.
We were heading toward a pepper plantation that the driver had
assured us he knew how to find. There were five of us jammed into the
tuktuk – a four-passenger cart pulled by a motorcycle. (It’s like riding
in an escaped carnival ride.) We’d left the riverside city of Kampot
in southern Cambodia far behind; past the city center with its giant
statue of a durian fruit, past endless low shops lining either side of
the asphalt road, and onto a dirt track. We had been bouncing along like
this for maybe 20 minutes.
“Ten minutes,” the driver said.
We
passed small neat farms, with one-story houses up on stilts, Brahma
cows strolling by or lying down, and strutting long-legged chickens.
Emerald-green swaths of – something. Is that what rice looks like?
Little children wearing shorts would wave vigorously as we chugged past
and shout “Hello!” They seemed delighted to make a connection. Their
lively greetings sounded like bird calls. Read the full article here.
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