Retired in Cambodia: Strange tropical produce in a Cambodia's market

Added: 2026-06-07

[00:00:00]Hey, I'm at the market today, Sakam. And um name me five fruits and five vegetables, okay, that you guys uh in the Western world, girls in the Western world use like uh like on a a weekly or monthly basis, okay, that may be not as easy as you think. Bump it up to 10 fruits and 10 vegetables. We're going to go take a look at some really obscure stuff here. and that when I first got here 4 years ago, I'm going, "What the heck is that?" So, let's go take a look at that.

[00:00:34]See, we've got all kinds of stuff here that you may be able to know what that is. Uh, and a lot of it, if you've never been out of United States, you'd have no clue. Um, baby, what is this right here?

[00:00:47]>> Righty.

[00:00:48]>> Rice. Righty. That's >> right. Yeah.

[00:00:51]>> Okay.

[00:00:52]>> Okay. And what does it taste like?

[00:00:54]Tastes sweet.

[00:00:55]>> It's sweet.

[00:00:56]>> Yeah.

[00:00:57]>> So, you just you just eat it like that or you put it in something?

[00:01:01]>> Then fruit. This one.

[00:01:03]>> Just eat it like a fruit.

[00:01:04]>> Yeah. Fruit.

[00:01:05]>> Oh, okay. And it's nice and sweet, huh?

[00:01:07]>> Yeah.

[00:01:08]>> Okay. Well, there's one that I never knew of. Uh there's another that I don't know of. So, what's that one?

[00:01:15]>> The same. And the ricey. The same, but I don't know name.

[00:01:19]>> The same but different. Huh?

[00:01:20]>> Yeah. The same different.

[00:01:21]>> How about that? this and the fruit, but inside have the sour.

[00:01:27]>> Oh, sweet.

[00:01:28]>> Not sweet. Yes.

[00:01:28]>> So, that one's sour, huh?

[00:01:30]>> Yeah.

[00:01:31]>> You is it have a a kamine name?

[00:01:33]>> My name and >> Okay.

[00:01:39]>> Yeah. See, there's just I mean just in the first stop >> then mango.

[00:01:43]>> Small. Yeah. Small mangoes in the first stop. Oh, hey, there's one of my favorites over there. Let's go take a look at >> Let's go take a look at one of my favorites for breakfast to have as my dessert for breakfast.

[00:01:59]>> And those are called mango steeen.

[00:02:03]>> Okay. They're really nice. You just kind of cut around it and then you got some some really nice white meat in there.

[00:02:09]It's like it's sweet. Uh and it's like a little bit like um >> sour. Well, it it's it's like a peach and a pear kind of consistency, but maybe a little bit sweeter. And it's it's really really good. Okay, I'm not even going to talk about this one. I want you guys and gals, if you know what that is, uh please leave a comment. Uh >> dragon fruits >> in in >> dragon fruit.

[00:02:36]>> Okay, she said it. She was the first one to say it, so she got it right. Yes, that is a dragon fruit. But you can still put your comments down below.

[00:02:45]Okay.

[00:02:46]>> Have the two color, the red and the white.

[00:02:49]>> Yeah. Which is better? Which is sweeter?

[00:02:51]>> The this I think red inside. Red color.

[00:02:56]>> Yeah. This one.

[00:02:58]>> Okay.

[00:03:00]>> And what's this? Just >> papaya. No, >> it's another Yeah, fruit.

[00:03:05]>> We We all knew that was a papaya, right?

[00:03:08]>> Yeah.

[00:03:10]>> Okay. We're going to explore deeper into the bowels of the of of the market here and see what we can find back here. Uh Vanna's telling me that there's a whole bunch of uh vegetables back there that we can take a look at and try to figure out what the heck. What we have here is one of my favorites actually. I don't know if it's a fruit or a vegetable or a Well, I know it's a plant. It's lemongrass and it goes great in a lot of foods and also great for making tea.

[00:03:44]>> And makes me tea quite often with that and green >> and green tea. I love it.

[00:03:51]>> Okay. What what this is is actually it's a bean, right? Like we got back in the western like in the United States and stuff. But that's it's longer.

[00:04:02]>> Uh so long.

[00:04:04]>> Yeah. So, what they call it because it it's a bean and it's longer, they call it um, believe it or not, they call it a long bean.

[00:04:14]Would you have guessed that one?

[00:04:17]>> Oh, dude, check out them chilies.

[00:04:20]>> Yeah, but it's not spicy.

[00:04:27]>> Now, that's a long chili, but Vanna says it's not too spicy. Um, okay.

[00:04:36]Not too spicy, huh?

[00:04:38]>> Yes.

[00:04:39]>> Okay.

[00:04:42]There. And they're slicing up the lemongrass real small to use as an herb or anything that you really want to use at. That's pretty neat.

[00:04:55]>> How come? Thank you.

[00:04:58]in this side have the okay >> yellow color >> and that's called the what >> tamarik >> tamarak tamar and this one has no name it's an orphan >> I don't know English it's one for the the serpent can make am food >> okay >> yeah smell >> woo smells like plant and this one here >> um I I don't know So that's not ginger.

[00:05:29]>> Is that like a ginger?

[00:05:31]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:32]>> Ginger.

[00:05:33]>> Ginger. No. No. No. Ging ginger.

[00:05:35]>> Okay.

[00:05:36]>> Yeah.

[00:05:37]>> That's another one that has no name, but it looks really >> odd. Letter I check. And then English name.

[00:05:43]>> Okay.

[00:05:45]What's this one?

[00:05:48]>> This one. This. Oh.

[00:05:52]And I don't know English.

[00:05:57]Yeah. And you use it in soups?

[00:05:59]>> Yeah. Soup and fry with and the the pork and chicken also.

[00:06:06]>> All righty. Well, thank you.

[00:06:08]>> Yeah. Let's go look for some other cool stuff.

[00:06:12]>> This is one very interesting part of a plant. Okay. Um, if if I were to be able to open it up a little bit, let's let's let's try this again.

[00:06:27]Okay. Okay. I put it down here. I want to open this up a little bit and show you. You see what that is in there?

[00:06:35]Those are bananas. This is how a banana starts growing. Those are baby bananas.

[00:06:41]And there's hundreds and hundreds of them in this thing called banana flour.

[00:06:50]At the bottom of each huge gigantic bunch of bananas, you have one of these.

[00:06:55]And this is where it all starts. It's from the banana flour. And you can use this, baby. What can you use this one for? You can use it in salads.

[00:07:02]>> Yeah. Salad. Soup >> and soup. Soup and salad.

[00:07:08]>> All right. Yeah. Bet you never seen them before, huh?

[00:07:14]Now, this here is very interesting. This is called Crohawk. They use a lot of it.

[00:07:19]It is very sour and very spicy. And basically, it is a fermented uh fish paste.

[00:07:26]>> How long has that been fermenting?

[00:07:29]>> How long has this sit?

[00:07:38]>> And maybe a year.

[00:07:39]>> One year. Yeah. It's been sitting in that tub one year fermenting all that that fish stuff from the fish.

[00:07:46]>> Yeah. From the fish. So, um that's that's called throw hawk. They use it in a lot of dishes.

[00:07:53]>> It's uh little warning here. It's not for the faint of heart. Okay.

[00:08:02]Now, here's where we get interested in in the vegetables. Okay. Uh there is so many uh these kind of plants they grow everywhere and they use them a lot. Uh suppose that's is this like an onion baby a little bit?

[00:08:16]>> No no no onion. No >> no no.

[00:08:19]>> Yeah.

[00:08:20]>> Okay. Well what what what would you use that for? And what does it taste like?

[00:08:23]>> Fly this and the can soup and the fry.

[00:08:30]>> Okay. Let's try that.

[00:08:32]>> Same. and just a ton of different kinds of things like that. Let's go somewhere else and find some uh some worm.

[00:08:42]This giant thing here about 4 ft tall.

[00:08:47]Um don't know what the name of it is, but it's uh very sour and it's used to uh uh sour up soups. So, you can use that in soups along with uh just about everything here.

[00:09:08]Oh, >> hey. I forgot I forgot to ask you when we were looking at all of that. Um, what does most of that cost per kilo?

[00:09:14]>> Kilo and the Wonderland half.

[00:09:18]>> $1 and a half to the most would be $1 and a half for a kilo.

[00:09:21]>> Some things are only a dollar.

[00:09:23]>> Yeah.

[00:09:24]>> Yeah. How much is rice a kilo?

[00:09:27]>> Rice?

[00:09:27]>> Yeah. Right. And $1 >> $1. Oh, it went up in price. Okay.

[00:09:35]>> We're not doing the uh the meats today, but uh we just wanted to get the the fruits and the vegetables because find that very interesting. Everybody knows what the meat is around here. So, uh let's see what else we can find.

[00:10:00]Baby, what are these?

[00:10:03]>> I don't know English.

[00:10:07]>> Yeah, >> trap. But I like this. And for the eat with proh, right?

[00:10:11]>> Eat with prohawk. Okay.

[00:10:14]>> All right. Is this Is this sour?

[00:10:16]>> No, that's not him.

[00:10:22]>> Okay. Yes, the same.

[00:10:25]>> Everybody knows what that is, right?

[00:10:30]How about this one? Of course you do.

[00:10:33]>> Ginger.

[00:10:34]>> Yeah, >> this one. And ginger.

[00:10:37]>> What's that good for?

[00:10:38]>> Ginger.

[00:10:39]>> Like for your body.

[00:10:41]>> Yeah. Good for the body. And can the tea put in tea?

[00:10:45]>> Yeah.

[00:10:46]>> Yeah.

[00:10:46]>> Yeah. You put in You put that in in my tea, right?

[00:10:49]>> Yes. Because >> lemon glass and then but this one ginger >> it's good for tummy ache.

[00:10:58]>> Yeah, it's good for my tummy aches.

[00:11:02]And it is too. It's really good. Not my tummy aches, but but the tea.

[00:11:09]>> Okay. What is that, baby?

[00:11:10]>> And the jack fruits.

[00:11:12]>> Yeah.

[00:11:12]>> Yes.

[00:11:13]>> And that is uh sour or sweet or >> sweet.

[00:11:18]Yeah, they're sweet. Very sweet.

[00:11:21]>> Yeah. And they grow on a tree and they they just hang off the branches. I wish I could get some shots of that cuz it looks pretty crazy. How much would that cost a kilo?

[00:11:30]>> Kilo and maybe five $2.

[00:11:38]>> $2 kilo.

[00:11:39]>> Yes.

[00:11:41]>> Okay.

[00:11:43]>> And here's one.

[00:11:46]Here's one that's been cut in half and I'm not getting a good shot of it.

[00:11:52]Yeah. So, that's what it looks like when it's all sliced in half.

[00:11:58]How about these?

[00:12:00]Everybody knows what these are, right?

[00:12:03]Baby, what are those called? Do you have the English?

[00:12:06]>> Ah, English.

[00:12:10]I I don't know. I forgot my call. Yeah.

[00:12:15]>> Yeah.

[00:12:16]>> You sweet or sour?

[00:12:17]>> I'm sweet.

[00:12:18]>> Okay.

[00:12:20]>> Yeah. Not sour.

[00:12:24]>> Now, those oranges are not from Cambodia.

[00:12:29]>> Yes.

[00:12:30]>> No.

[00:12:31]>> No.

[00:12:31]>> We'll show you. We'll show you a Cambodian orange here as soon as we can find one.

[00:12:37]>> Okay. Tell me tell me what that is.

[00:12:39]>> This one. my orange Cambodia orange and the green yellow.

[00:12:46]>> But you notice it's not orange.

[00:12:49]And that is um that is a a that is a pretty big orange. I've had them before and they are just loaded loaded with juice.

[00:13:24]Well, if you get hungry and stop here and eat, you can't get it much fresher than here at uh at one of the bigger markets.

[00:13:33]Uh yeah, you can guarantee freshness.

[00:13:37]Westerners talking from the farm to uh the table. Well, they're skipping something around here. It just goes right into your mouth.

[00:13:46]>> All righty, let's get out of here.

[00:13:50]Okay, now this fruit right here is the notorious durian. Okay, either you love it or you don't.

[00:13:58]Uh it's got a very unique uh uh uh odor to it. And that's what it looks like once they get it out of this this shell here. And um it's like custard. very very smooth when you eat it. Um, and it smells horrible, but the ironic thing about it is um it doesn't taste anything like the smell. Uh, and it's quite expensive.

[00:14:27]And my stepdaughter, mom, she just loves it. And she, yeah, breaks my wallet, doesn't she? She breaks my wallet. Daddy Durian. Daddy Dian, I'm glad it only comes around once a year. Okay. And if you miss it, you miss it.

[00:14:49]Okay. Well, I hope you like that little trip out to uh Sakam Market to check out the fruits and veggies that I know a lot of them I've never seen until I came to Cambodia. So, anyways, hey, if you're still here, you know you're my number one fans and I'll see you on the next one. Bye.