AsiaLIFE

Will gets ready to celebrate the Fourth of July, Cambodian-style!

The Fourth of July is a big deal for Americans. It's more than just an anniversary of the public reading of a document that blamed all the world's problems on the king of Great Britain. It's a day to wave the flag, celebrate being American and thank the heavens that we're not like those godless Canadians with their universal health care, value-added tax and shockingly low rate of gun-related deaths. There will be parades, apple pie and a great deal of literal flag-waving. There will also be fireworks, even if all the really good ones are illegal in Oregon. But amidst the fluttering U.S. flags and crackling of neutered fireworks, families and friends gather around what's really important – the barbecue.

My wife, raised in a family and culture that is passionate about food, launches into days of preparation if someone so much as mentions a barbecue. Meat, preferably straight from the butcher who slaughtered the unlucky animal, must be carefully selected. A dizzying array of spices – most of them exotic and some of them surprisingly expensive for being a weed – are gathered, diced and ground into finely measured concoctions. Whole chickens must be marinated, basted and left to stew in their own juices. A select assortment of vegetables are chopped and arranged, skewered on kebabs and dusted with other special spices.

Where I'm from, people just toss a patty of ground beef on a barbecue. The most preparation revolves around what kind of soda to buy. The only spice is ketchup, unless you consider cheese a spice. This does not go over well with Cambodians.

While western-themed fast-food restaurants have sprung up in Phnom Penh over the years, few Cambodian patrons of Lucky Burger or BB World buy the staple of American civilisation. Most of the diners are interested in fried chicken, not hamburgers. Even in the U.S., Cambodians routinely say fast-food burgers lack flavour and need something else beside beef, which is ironic as the standard sales pitch is that burgers are 100 percent ground beef. I usually mumble in response as I wolf down that flavourless burger before they start talking about truly flavourful food – prahoc, duckling-in-shell and pickled bamboo shoots.

Bringing traditional Cambodian feast food to a party full of Americans doesn't always go down very well either. Most people like fried rice or Cambodian desserts. But an American who will happily eat scrambled eggs for breakfast, chicken nuggets for lunch and duck a l'orange for dinner will recoil in disgusted horror at the sight of a duckling-in-shell being eaten with a bit of ground pepper and lime juice.

I know this, as I am that kind of American. The tale of "The Ugly Duckling" would have been much shorter – and more popular among foodies – if Hans Christian Andersen had been from Southeast Asia. But like many Americans, I choose to think the meat I buy at the grocery store has nothing to do with the capering Disney characters I grew up watching.

However, my protestations that she's putting too much effort into a meal that is essentially a distraction (for most Americans) to drinking beer and lighting things on fire are ignored. Or, I am offered suggestions on how I can make myself useful. Of course, her definition of utility involves grinding lemongrass with a mortar and pestle, not teaching our son how to attach bottle rockets (smuggled from another state) to a paper airplane. So instead of risking my fingers trying to teach physics to a two-year-old, I'll be in the kitchen learning where food really comes from. I wonder how I could blame the British – or the Canadians?

Will Koenig lives in Oregon, which is the American state closest to Canada in philosophy if not proximity. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .