Vignettes from the Village
$7
Vignettes from the Village chronicles everyday life in a small Cambodian village named Dom Lo. Although the characters and place names have been fictionalized in the name of privacy, all of the stories are historically accurate.
80 pages/Published in 2009
Café Ch’gai…
Any new and original idea arrives prepackaged with its own set of pros and cons. Along with the anxious stirrings of acceptability and criticism, arrives a full compliment of defenders and nay-Sayers. This story from the near-past is no different from the stories of many other acclaimed entrepreneurs...Tesla. Edison. Franklin. Morse. Whitney, Ford…Each and every one of them trotted out new product lines to an untested market.
The village of Dom Lo already had its fair share of farmers, loan-sharks, metal-smiths, pillow-makers, masons, carpenters, and seamstresses. There also resided quite a few hairdressers, butchers, bakers, mechanics, and moto-taxi drivers. Although it was true that a number of restaurants also existed, there appeared to be a small niche available…An overlooked cuisine near and dear to at least some of the villager’s hearts.
One lone soul in the village often gave thought to this little-known, or at least, little-thought-of…Niche.
While it is surely well known and perhaps even well documented somewhere…During the leanest of times the villagers had taken to eating a variety of interesting menu items. While today’s villager is much more particular, in the midst of the Cambodian civil war and certainly during the dark years following Pol Pot’s Year Zero in 1975, famine was rampantly demonstrated on all fronts and people did what they had to do in order to survive. This gave rise to diets which included grass, flowers, insects, or for that matter, every available meaty or leafy creature around. One simply dined or expired.
When it came to the consumption of domesticated animals, it seems that there was no clear consensus on which species was viewed as taboo and which was not. For instance, most villagers consider pigs, cows, chickens, and ducks to be truly divine, while there has always been a small minority who have written off one or all on the list as somehow inadequate. Most agree today that cats, or ch’maa, are certainly off limits, although they had been widely accepted during the darkest of times. But now that the darkest of times are in the past, or so everyone prays, cats, as far as dinner fare is concerned anyway, are deemed quite inappropriate by most in the village. There is of course the occasional rumor in the air from time to time regarding certain ch’maa feasts. These occurrences, rare as they are, are normally dismissed as wily and impulsive acts of indulgence brought on by too much rice whiskey and not enough sane thought.
The realm of dog consumption is another matter altogether. There are those in the village that indulge and there are those that don’t. The discussion is far from clear cut. The ingestion of ch’gai, or dog, it seems, is somewhat of a family decision in the village, or at least it is until some renegade sibling or in-law has a taste and the family tradition is forever and irretrievably altered.
Like I was saying earlier, there was however one enterprising man in the village who attempted to capitalize upon the discriminating tastes of canine-adoring palettes. This entrepreneur’s name was Pran and he decided to open up a restaurant specializing in canine cuisine. Pran’s restaurant or shall we say café (it just sounds more avant-garde), was rather modest, with a smattering of tables and a small counter for discerning takeaway customers. Locally-distilled rice whiskey was served gratuitously and from all accounts the café was a hit right from the start.
The first thing Pran did before opening up the café, was to travel through the village to see if there were any residents willing to sell their prized pets. Although certain breeds looked more appealing to the eye, Pran always joked that they all pretty much cooked up the same. Since Pran lacked a truck, and besides, the roads through the village were very narrow, he rode his moto (small motorcycle) when gathering up the dogs.
After agreeing to a price, Pran placed the dogs into a large rice sack, taking care to tie the top off tightly in order to avoid an untimely escape. He then happily rode off down the beaten and oftentimes muddy path, his prey thrashing wildly about behind him. How he managed not to crash no one ever knew.
This tactic proved viable…At least in the beginning it did. It wasn’t long before all the unwanted and unloved dogs in the village were on their way to a hungry customer’s plate at the Café Ch’gai. Under the tenets of Buddhism, these chosen creatures were also one step closer to heaven, soon enjoying a next life which surely had to be better than the lot they drew in the previous go round. As you can imagine the strays in the village were also swept up quite quickly, thereby eliminating any dog nuisance in the village. Of course it might also be said that some of the strays were not strays at all, merely mongrels that had ‘strayed’ a tad too far from their home, a home never to be revisited again.
As I alluded to earlier, this plan worked well in the beginning. It worked like clockwork until the inventory ran low. Pran, knowing he couldn’t easily substitute dogs with other unwanted pets, decided he needed to do something and do it quickly. (Read more, buy the book)