This afternoon I was invited by my landlady's family to go with them to their pond which is situated in their field, a few minutes down the road. They told me they would be fishing and based on my enjoyment of the last fishing trip, I graciously accepted the invitation and looked forward to catching a few myslef if given the opportunity.
I was mistaken however, by thinking that fishing meant with a net or line and this style of fishing was new to me! A huge motor pumped the water out of the pond and into a neighbouring field. This left a dirty, muddy bog with the wildlife ready to be caught and cooked! A group of (mostly male) volunteers then went about catching what ever they could find whilst knee deep in mud. It was highly entertaining to watch and I only just suppressed the overwhelming urge to abandon my flipflops and join them!
They quickly filled the buckets with the fish they caught by hand. Huge water snails also turned up, were thrown out of the emptying pond towards the watching women so that they could be placed in a stack of burning hay and cooked! Unfortunately I didn't get to try one! It was amazing what came out of this pond other than fish. There were a few snakes caught, swiftly kiled and plopped into the bucket of fish. There was one crab which was also thrown into one bucket and loads and loads of frogs! Huge, ugly, green frogs!!
They looked like quite a challenge to catch. They were also quite a challenge to kill as I witnessed against my better judgement! They were held by the legs and their heads smashed against a near by tree stump or whatever was close to hand. This would have to be repeated several times until quite often the eyes started to bleed, the tongue and goodness knows what else fell out of their mouths but still they lived! Watching this and then watching them being skinned was enough to turn my stomach. I am trying to be more Khmer and not let my face always betray my feelings but I was really quite physically repelled watching the capture, execution and skinning of these animals. The family laughed at my revulsion and I declined the offer to taste a cooked one. I have eaten frog before at Khmer restaurants and they've been really tasty but I couldn't bring myself to this time after having witnessed their brutal murders! I have heard that in the marekts, frogs are skinned while they're still alive so it could've been worse!
The fish tasted great though. Funny, but I didn't experience the same ethical challenges watching them being caught, kept alive in buckets and then hit on the head before being thrown into the fire. Yum yum!
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