The pungent smell of rotting seafood hangs heavily in the air as Cambodians crowd the country's riverbanks, gutting and crushing finger-sized fish by the tonne as the annual frenzy of making prahok, fermented fish paste, gets underway.
Yos Kim slowly works through the 300kg of tiny fish piled high around him and his family on the banks of Cambodia's Tonle Sap River, slicing off their heads with a knife while his children crush their bodies underfoot in baskets.
The gray pulp will be set out to dry for 24 hours before being salted and packed into bags or plastic jars to sit for weeks, if not months, to ferment.
PHOTO: AFP
The result is a spicy pungent mash that, while challenging the senses of even the most adventurous foreigner, is considered by Cambodians to be the soul of their rich culinary culture.
"Prahok is the taste of Cambodia. If there is no prahok, we are not Cambodians. Prahok is the Khmer identity," says Nao Thouk, director of the agriculture ministry's fisheries department. The Khmer are Cambodia's largest ethnic group.
"Prahok is equal in value to rice. Farmers would face a hard time living without it," says Yos Kim, who traveled from his home in Prey Veng province, bordering Vietnam, for this year's prahok season.
"It's so important for our daily lives — we use it in every soup," says Dim Eang, her hands deep inside a pile of raw fish which she is mixing with salt.
Some fisherman are grumbling that their prahok catches have greatly diminished this year. Others complain that the price of prahok fish has almost doubled this year to roughly NT$4 a kilo.(AFP)
腐壞海鮮的刺鼻味瀰漫在空氣中。每年製作「帕歐克」（一種發酵的魚醬）的
熱潮一到，柬埔寨人就會在河邊萬頭鑽動，將成噸的拇指大小的小魚去除內臟後壓碎。
柬埔寨洞里薩河畔，三百公斤的小魚在尤斯金和家人身邊堆得像山一樣，他慢條斯理地處理這些魚，用刀將魚頭切下，小孩們則把魚身壓碎在腳邊的籃子裡。
灰色的魚肉會被放在外面風乾二十四小時，再撒上鹽巴，裝入袋子裡或塑膠罐發酵幾個月，或至少幾週。
最後形成辛辣刺鼻的糊狀物，能挑戰最大膽的異鄉客味覺，但對柬埔寨人來說，這卻是豐富飲食文化的精隨。
農業部漁業局處長納歐．陶克表示︰「
帕歐克是正港柬埔寨味，沒有帕歐克，我們就不是柬埔寨人，帕歐克是高棉人身分的印記。」高棉人是柬埔寨最大的族群。
尤斯金說︰「帕歐克的價值等同稻米
，若沒有帕歐克，農夫將陷入困境。」為了今年的歐帕克季，他離開位在越南邊境波羅勉省的家園。
蒂姆．依恩說︰「這對我們的日常生活來說太重要了。這是我們煮湯必備的料理」她的手伸進一大堆混著鹽巴的生魚中。
有些漁夫們抱怨今年的帕歐克小魚的捕獲量大幅減低。還有人抱怨今年帕歐克魚的價格上漲將近兩倍，每公斤約新台幣四元。
（法新社╱翻譯︰鄭湘儀）
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