Cucumbers and bamboo rats
By Tessa Bunney on 21 September 2012I don’t know if it’s just because in the UK I live in the hills but I have been instantly attracted to the hills and mountains of Laos and the minorities who live there such as the Hmong and Akha.
The last few days however I have been staying at a Tai Dam (Black Thai) village in Oudomxai Province about 300 km north of Luang Prabang. Tai Dam villages are spread through numerous fertile valleys in the mountainous parts of Laos and Ban Na Mor is no exception.
Ban Na Mor
Ban Na Mor market is on the main road north from Luang Prabang nearby to Luang Namtha. I don’t know why but my recollection of how far the village is from Luang Prabang proved to be completely incorrect, 2 or 3 hours drive was actually nearer 8! The village itself is a little way off the main road and has been in that location for more than 200 years.
I set up my light and photographed every product and again my memory seems to be somewhat hazy and despite “remembering” seeing the creeping in of modern products, the market that day consisted of only items grown and collected by the villagers of Ban Na Mor. That’s everything from cucumbers to bamboo rats.
In their book exploring food biodiversity and traditional cooking practices in Laos ‘So we don’t forget..’, Shui Meng Ng and Sombath Somphone write that whether eaten or sold for cash, foods from nature continue to constitute a very important component of the Lao diet and the rural household economy… for most Lao, any plant or animal-type food gathered or caught in the wild is generally preferred to the cultivated or domesticated variety, even though increasingly food on the Lao table, especially in urban areas, are of the cultivated or domesticated variety, due to population growth, deforestation, and depletion of natural forest and water resources.
I’m slowly discovering my favourite villages, places where I would love to spend more time and the warm welcome we received definately puts Ban Na Mor on my list. We purchased a few products from the market to take along to the family we were staying with so got to try out a few local dishes – deep fried stag beetles stuffed with bamboo shoots and chilli was pretty tasty… and I am not joking! The bamboo rat was the largest animal for sale on that day but the next day in a small town on route we saw a beautiful but sadly dead civet for sale outside the pharmacy.
After I finished photographing the market produce, I put up a piece of fabric as a background and invited the women to come and have their photo taken – I’ve never done anything like that before and I’m not sure the results are what I expected or wanted but it was interesting to see how the women came and presented themselves in a formal way.
