Pchum Ben & Tradition: Promoting the art of making Num Ansom

The Num Ansom cake is familiar to all Cambodians and remains very popular at major festivals such as Pchum Ben.

Num Ansom

This speciality is an important part of Khmer identity, but only a small group of people - mainly elderly women - know how to prepare it and wrap it in the traditional banana leaf. It is to be feared that this knowledge will one day be lost.

This is a cylindrical cake made from glutinous rice that can be filled with sweet bananas (នំអន្សមចេក, num ansom chek), jackfruit (នំអន្សមខ្នុរ, num ansom khnao) or pork (នំអន្សមជ្រូក, num ansom chrouk). As well as being steamed, num ansom can also be fried or grilled, depending on the occasion.

When Cambodian temple-building traditions died out, so did the architectural manifestations of Shiva Lingam and Yoni. Nevertheless, the concept of Mea Ba, or respect for mother and father, has endured and is still present in Khmer gastronomy. These two cakes are therefore an essential part of a traditional wedding.

The num ansom is associated in Khmer culture with its steamed counterpart, the num kom, wrapped in a banana leaf. The cylindrical shape of the num ansom represents a phallus, symbolising Shiva, while the pyramid shape of the num kom symbolises Uma, his consort. In popular Khmer culture, the cakes represent the two heads of family.

At Khmer New Year and during Pchum Ben

Glutinous rice cakes are offered to the spirits of the ancestors on Pchum Ben to obtain their blessing for the rice fields. In a way, these are the spirits of the ancestors, both of individual families, who are remembered during Pchum Ben, and of the Khmer people as a whole during the Khmer New Year.

The world's largest num ansom

At the Angkor Sankranta event in Siem Reap in April 2015, Cambodia broke the Guinness World Record for the largest glutinous rice cake. The cake weighed just over 4 tonnes (4,040 kg). It was certified by Guinness World Records as the world's largest cake on 13 April 2015, during the Khmer New Year.