Food, Drink and Meals in the Khmer World

At Angkor, in present-day Cambodia, a serving of rice began as work before it reached the bowl: grain had to be separated from its husk, cooked over a small hearth and handled with water at the meal. Archaeological finds from Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm preserve traces of this work. The Chinese visitor Zhou Daguan accompanied a Yuan diplomatic mission to Angkor in 1296-1297; his account describes ingredients, cooking equipment and drinks, while a hospital inscription from 1186-1187 shows rice also moving through an institution that fed patients and supported worship.

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Rice prepared for meals

Excavators recovered charred rice husks, grain fragments and spikelet bases at Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm. A spikelet base is the small point where a grain attaches to the branched head of the rice plant. At Angkor Wat, rice was among the most common identified food plants; Ta Prohm also yielded rice waste. The researchers interpret the husks and spikelet bases in inhabited areas as evidence that people dehusked rice near where they lived. The deposits represent different phases: habitation on Angkor Wat’s mounds is dated to the 12th-13th centuries, while Ta Prohm’s samples include both settlement before the temple was built and later occupation.

Zhou describes the next practical step: people dehusked rice in mortars rather than using millstones. Pounding paddy in a mortar separated the edible grain from its husk.

Fish and other ingredients

Zhou calls black carp especially plentiful in the Great Lake, Tonle Sap, and lists other lake fish, along with eels and conger eels. His food account also names shrimp and shellfish. At Angkor Wat, researchers identified a charred mung bean and fragments of citrus rind, black pepper and long pepper. These remains connect meals with pulses, fruit and seasonings as well as aquatic resources.

Carved scenes add a view of fishing and fish in a town setting. At Bayon, the Khmer temple at the center of Angkor Thom, the southern gallery places boats and fishermen near scenes of a market and outdoor cooking. The late-12th- and early-13th-century carvings show fishing alongside other public and household activity.

Cooking, serving and drinking

For cooking rice, Zhou describes a clay pot set over a hearth made from three buried stones; a coconut shell served as a ladle. Rice was served on Chinese ceramic or copper plates. Zhou says sauce was prepared in an earthenware pan. To serve it, diners used a small cup folded from leaves, which he says could hold liquid without leaking. Small spoons made from leaves of a waterside plant Zhou calls kiao let diners scoop up the sauce; after the meal, they were thrown away. He notes the same leaf utensils in offerings to spirits and the Buddha.

The meal was eaten by hand. Because the rice stuck to the fingers, a bowl of water sat nearby for dipping and cleaning them. Zhou also describes a difference in drinking vessels: tin cups were used for wine, poorer drinkers used earthenware bowls, and wealthy households sometimes owned silver or gold vessels. The details describe the capital as he saw it in 1296-1297, with the vessels themselves making wealth visible at the table.

His list of fermented drinks shows how ingredients could be turned into more than food. Fermentation is a process in which microorganisms turn sugars into alcohol. Zhou says honey wine used a ferment and equal parts honey and water. Another drink was made from tree leaves; a rice drink from raw rice or leftover cooked rice; and a sugar wine from cane sugar. He also reports that sap from this plant could be fermented.

Rice for a hospital and its patients

A Khmer inscription from the hospital at Say Fong, in present-day Laos, gives a dated institutional view of food. The foundation was established in 1186-1187 under Jayavarman VII. Its text assigns two cooks to distribute food, fuel and water, and records workers who pounded paddy. It also sets aside a daily measure of white rice, called a droṇa, for offerings to the gods; the inscription says the leftovers from that offering went to the sick.