AsiaLIFE

When Friends International launched a restaurant training facility in Laos, it was only a matter of time before the organisation created another ambitious cookbook. The wait is over, and the result is so much more than a collection from the Friends restaurant in Vientiane—it is a culinary tour de force of the entire country. Words by Craig Gerard. Photography from “From Honeybees to Pepperwood: Creative Lao Cooking with Friends”.

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Come on, admit it. You want to know how to make Buffalo Laap. It is a combination of herbs, spices, raw water buffalo meat and water buffalo skin, with buffalo bile used as dressing. “It is really one of the most disgusting dishes,” says Gustav Auer, Friends International hospitality training coordinator and mastermind behind the new cookbook. “But I had to include it in the book.”

“From Honeybees to Pepperwood” is a lively and vibrant guide to Laotian cuisine, decorated with splashes of colour and imaginative artwork. Included in the book are paintings from students in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, a combined effort representing the entire organisation of Friends International. “We wanted the book to be playful,” Auer explains. “Its playfulness represents Friends and the team in Laos.”

As beautiful as the publication is, the food is the real reason to get your hands on this book. It is not all buffalo bile—Auer describes Laotian food as “very simple and very delicious,” due in part to the use of natural ingredients. “It is naturally organic,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be ‘forced’ like we try to do in the West because they just walk into the forest to collect ingredients.”

Like Friends and Romdeng Restaurants in Phnom Penh, the Makhpet eatery in Vientiane is a training ground to bring street children successfully into the hospitality industry. Named for the Lao word for chilli, the restaurant incorporates students in three phases of training: basic food hygiene, food preparation and serving. As a result, they are able to successfully place graduates in hotels, restaurants, or in some cases, the students start their own restaurants.

The cuisine at Makhpet is all Laotian. One of the better selling items is the Laos Burger, which is a patty of Laos sausage, topped with a tomato dip instead of ketchup and put in a bun made from red sticky rice crust. “You pick it up and eat it like a burger,” Auer explains, “but the ingredients are 100 percent local.” The new cookbook doesn’t include the Laos Burger, but it does feature Makhpet’s famous frozen drinks. The very popular red hibiscus daiquiri is a modern twist on the traditional Laotian frozen drink made from the flower. The ice coffee with coconut ice cream is also not to be missed.

Instead of only collecting recipes from the Friends training restaurant in Vientiane, Auer led a team of cooks from Makhpet on a tour of Laos to try recipes from all over the country. “It was great because the cooks were able to learn a lot about the history of their own cuisine,” says Auer.

Taking recipes from seven different provinces, ranging from southern Laos all the way to northern Laos and everywhere in between, the team amassed a diverse collection.

“We were able to get recipes from hill tribes and different ethnic groups,” Auer explains. “Even restaurants were happy to give us their recipes.”

Auer’s favourite dish in the book is for Kao Peake Pa, which translates to Savannakhet style fish dumpling and rice noodle soup. The dish is not easy to make; the broth alone takes two hours but, according to Auer, is well worth the effort. “This beats any soup I’ve had yet,” he says.

Dips are another staple of Laotian food, usually served with sticky rice and eaten with your hands. “The dips made it for me,” Auer says of his Laotian food tour. The Laven style grilled onion, chilli and tomato dip is a fairly simple mixture of ingredients, but the combination is an explosion of flavour. Auer warns that most Laotian food is spicy, but you can ask restaurants in Laos to turn down the spice if needed.

During their tour of the country, the Makhpet cooks entered a competition to see how their dishes would match up against other local fare. With the honeybee larva amok (from which the book got half its title), the group took second place in the competition. “That made me really proud,” Auer says.

Producing a cookbook of this calibre is a coming of age of sorts for Peuan Mit, the Laos team at Friends International. Having opened their doors seven years ago, the team has reached tremendous success, as showcased by this cookbook. With proceeds from sales going directly to support Friends International programs, “From Honeybees to Pepperwood” is a worthwhile purchase for anyone who has travelled or plans to travel to Laos. Auer hopes it will inspire people to get outside of Luang Prabang when they visit Laos.

“The countryside is just beautiful,” Auer says. “I think it is very mystical, with green hills covered in mist. It’s like a fairytale.”

“From Honeybees to Pepperwood” is available at all Friends locations and Monument Books.

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