The story of a meeting, a friendship and a culinary collaboration between Her Royal Highness Norodom Buppha Devi and renowned chef Luu Meng.
From great devotion comes great art
Walking through the alleys of Angkor Wat, you can admire the magnificence and meticulousness of the statues, sculptures, reliefs and friezes of the world's largest religious structure. A closer look reveals that almost every surface is treated and sculpted with narrative or decorative details.
Angkor Wat was designed and built to be in harmony with the universe, planned according to sunrise and moonrise, symbolising recurring temporal sequences. The central axis aligns with the planets, linking the structure to the cosmos so that the temple becomes a spiritual, political, cosmological, astronomical and geophysical centre, a mandala - a diagram of the universe.
We can meditate on the other magnificent forms of art and craft that must have existed in the community at that time. Costumes, ornaments, jewellery, paintings, music and, of course, dance. We can only imagine, because unlike the ability of stone to withstand the jungle and the forces of nature and last for millennia, much of the fine art and refined culture of the Khmer Empire has been lost to history.
Freedom of expression
When Cambodia gained independence from French rule in 1953, it enjoyed a brief and glorious period of optimism and cultural expression. With the royal family now based in Phnom Penh, the city became a renowned centre for the arts, and it was at this time that a new, modern and distinctly Khmer cultural scene emerged. Once again, much of what we know about it was lost in the Khmer Rouge genocide that followed.
Luu Meng is Cambodia's most famous chef. His mother ran a bahn chao (fine, tasty omelette) shop on Sothearos Boulevard and his grandmother worked as a cook at the Royal Palace before opening her own restaurant. When he was just three years old, Meng and his family were forced to flee Cambodia to a United Nations-run refugee camp in Thailand. Meng's family survived the Khmer Rouge by following his grandfather's advice to stay near water. Meng's grandfather had previously fled Mao Zedong's regime in China and settled in Phnom Penh.
Meng was eventually able to return to Phnom Penh and, in 1993, began working at the Sofitel Cambodiana as a trainee chef, before becoming sous-chef in 1995. Meng later worked as executive chef at the Sunway Hotel. In 2001, he worked for the Sofitel in Siem Reap. In the mid-2000s, with his former Sofitel colleague Arnaud Darc, Luu Meng opened ‘Malis’, the first Cambodian gourmet restaurant in Phnom Penh.
When Malis (which means Jasmine in English) opened its doors, it wasn't just a case of opening the doors and offering the classic dishes. Chef Luu Meng had to rediscover and redefine a lost cuisine and restore a nation's pride and respect for its finest foods, its reputation for produce and the dignity of its hospitality.
Meng has become both a chef and a culinary detective - more a ‘recipe raider’ than a ‘grave robber’ - travelling the length and breadth of the country in search of cooks, ingredients, recipes and techniques; He listened, tasted, learned and then trained his team of chefs, teaching them more than just the practical elements of a dish; he also shared stories, legends and details about the people behind the dishes, filling his team with the pride of being able to bring these dishes back to life and share them again with locals and visitors from all over the world.
Ten successful years later, the Thalias Group opened its second Malis restaurant in Siem Reap on 1 February 2016, sharing its vibrant Cambodian cuisine with the millions of foreign tourists who visit the temples every year. The new white and silver riverside building is a monolithic structure inspired by Prasat Kravan, a 10th-century Angkor temple south of Srah Srang Baray.
From the outside it looks imposing like a palace or state building, but inside it's a temple to food, a statement and offering of restored Cambodian cuisine and hospitality recreated in all its glory.
Chef Meng describes his cooking as ‘living Cambodian cuisine’ rather than traditional Khmer. He admits that today's cuisine has been influenced by its neighbours in the region and is constantly refined, evolving and emerging.
The Royal Ballet of Cambodia
As far back as the 7th century, there are traces of Cambodian dance performed as part of the funeral rites of Khmer kings. Temple dancers were recognised as ‘apsaras’, a type of female cloud and water spirit in Hindu and Buddhist culture. They were considered both artists and messengers of the deities. Ancient inscriptions describe thousands of apsaras performing divine rites in the temples. When Angkor fell to the Siamese, its craftsmen, brahmins and dancers were taken prisoner and taken to Ayutthaya.
The dancers from King Sisowath's court were exhibited at the 1906 Colonial Exhibition in Marseille, France, at the suggestion of George Bois, a French representative to the Cambodian court. The artist Auguste Rodin was captivated by the dancers and painted a series of watercolours of them.
After Cambodia's independence, Queen Sisowath Kossamak became a patron of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia and, under her direction, several reforms were made to the ballet, particularly in terms of choreography, and the length of performances, which used to last all night, was reduced to around an hour. Prince Norodom Sihanouk has featured dances from the royal ballet in his films.
The Cambodian dance tradition was devastated during the terrifying reign of the Khmer Rouge; it is estimated that 90% of all Cambodian classical artists were murdered or perished between 1975 and 1979. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, those who survived came out of hiding, reunited and formed ‘colonies’ to revive their sacred traditions. The teaching of classical Khmer dance was revived in the refugee camps of eastern Thailand by the few surviving Khmer dancers. Numerous dances and dance dramas have also been recreated at the Royal University of Fine Arts of Cambodia. In 2003, it was included on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage.
The Princess of Flowers
Her Royal Highness Samdech Reach Botrei Preah Ream Norodom Buppha Devi was the eldest daughter of the late King Father Norodom Sihanouk. The princess devoted her entire life to the performing arts. Her grandmother, Queen Sisowath Kossamak, chose her at an early age to become a dancer and at the age of 15 she became the principal dancer of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia.
At the age of 18, she was awarded the title of Prima Ballerina. The young princess toured the world as a principal dancer in the Royal Ballet with Queen Kossamak, and her father, Norodom Sihanouk, cast her in his first feature film, Apsara, in 1966.
Princess Buppha Devi was Deputy Minister of Culture and Fine Arts from 1991 to 1993, Royal Government Advisor for Culture and Fine Arts from 1993 to 1998, Vice-President of the Cambodian Red Cross from 1993 to 1997, President of the Cambodian Chinese Association in 2000 and Minister of Culture and Fine Arts in Prime Minister Hun Sen's cabinet from 1998 to 2004.
As a beautiful young woman, Norodom Buppha Devi danced for Charles de Gaulle on the terrace of the ancient Angkor Wat temple complex. It is said that the French president was spellbound.
On her death in 2019, The Times of London noted, ‘A beguiling and formidable presence in and out of Cambodia through times of turmoil and stability, the petite, delicate-looking princess, whose name in Khmer translates as goddess of flowers, always held a unique and special place in the hearts of Cambodians.’
The princess and the chief
Princess Buppha Devi appreciated Chef Luu Meng's contemporary Cambodian cuisine and his ongoing exploration of his country's history, recipes and culinary traditions, as well as his sincere efforts to elevate gastronomy and bring it into the modern world.
The chef was asked to prepare meals for Her Highness on a regular basis, and she took a keen interest in Meng's progress. It was thanks to this friendship that, five or six years ago, Princess Buppha Devi offered to share some of her favourite dishes with Meng, as a gift from the royal palace. These were well-known dishes prepared only by the princess's personal chef, who was reaching retirement age at the time. Of course, Meng jumped at the chance.
After several meetings and culinary collaborations between Meng, the princesses, the chef and Princess Buppha Devi herself, Meng refined the dishes, and today several of them feature on the Malis menu.
Nome has become best known and most famous as Malis' “Royal Mak Mee”, a cold dish of crispy fried noodles topped with slices of pan-fried pork. The pork is marinated in kroeung, a traditional blend of Khmer herbs and spices ground together to form a curry paste. At Malis, the chefs grind many fresh ingredients, including chilli, turmeric, garlic, shallots and ginger, to create a solid base for many of their recipes. For Mak Mee Royal, fragrant lemongrass is also added, and then the pork is slowly cooked in coconut milk.
It's fresh, clean and divine in its aroma, flavour and texture, a perfect harmony of subtle, complex spices, creaminess and crispy noodles. A dish fit for a princess, it's an endearing and enduring culinary and cultural gift for us all.
In November 2019, I had taken Chef Luu Meng to Hong Kong to cook at one of Hong Kong's oldest, most sacred, prestigious and exclusive private clubs, LRC, which opened its kitchen to the chef, to prepare a special menu of Khmer dishes for a guest list of some of Hong Kong's finest and most distinguished gourmands. The aim was to raise funds for the Pour un Sourire d'Enfant (PSE) school in Cambodia, in an event made possible thanks to the incredible support of Natixis Bank Hong Kong.
The event was a sell-out; the first course was Malis Royal Mak Mee, the audience loved it, a masterpiece in the first act, it sold out. This show would no doubt have brought a smile to the face of Cambodia's great champion of Khmer culture and art, its goddess of flowers, Her Highness Princess Buppha Devi.
By Garren Dall
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