Monthly Photos　October 2013

Photos taken by ILCAA staff and associates are posted here once a month; most of them are taken during their field research in Asia and Africa.

(The copyright belongs to the photographers.)

Will you have a bowl of khənom ciin?

Khənom ciin is a kind of Thai rice noodle. According to Cultural History of Noodles by Prof. Naomichi Ishige, it is made by extruding dough of fermented rice starch into boiling water. Vietnamese bun, Malay laksa, and perhaps Shan meeshay are made in a similar fashion with khənom ciin. Recipes of noodles in Southeast Asia are roughly classified into soup noodles, tossed noodles and fried noodles. Khənom ciin belongs to the first type, usually served with curries or other sauces. The khənom ciin stall in the picture was served with mild pork curry. The curry was well blended with noodle, and it was very delicious on the whole.

Incidentally, khənom ciin means “Chinese(ciin) cake(khənom)” in Thai. On the other hand some people insist that the name derived from a word of Mon, the language of an earlier settler in this area, based on the fact that it is originally a Mon food. Even if it is of Mon origin, the original name must have been rendered into Thai-like form at some stage, because aspirate consonants like kh- are fairly rare in Mon language and it seems less plausible that there is or was a Mon word which resembles khənom.

19 NOV 2010
Poipet, Banteay Meanchey Province, Cambodia
Photograph by Jun TAKASHIMA, Caption by Hideo SAWADA

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