Not the same as Thai food: Laotian cuisine is on the rise, and a trip to tourist hotspot Luang Prabang reveals its pungency, use of fresh herbs and earthy notes
- Laotian food essentials include sticky rice, freshwater fish and stews flavoured with fresh herbs that chefs in Luang Prabang grew up foraging in the jungle
- The food is less spicy than that of Thailand, and sun drying, fermentation and slow cooking in clay pots are all features of Laotian cuisine
The tuk-tuk drops us at the entrance to a narrow street, where a middle-aged woman dressed in a grey jumper is grilling honeycomb wrapped in banana leaf.
The edges of the leaf char as we follow the crowd to grab a honeycomb fresh off the coals.
Townsfolk at the daily morning market in Luang Prabang, Laos, call this soft, slightly crunchy snack hang peung.
It’s juicy, milky and subtly sweet, and full of small, white bee larvae, snug inside the hexagons.
The market occupies a few lanes close to the former royal palace, a French colonial-era residence turned museum.
Vendors from surrounding villages – mostly women – arrive before sunrise, setting up pitches on the floor and offering everything from rice to foraged herbs, chilli peppers, frogs, dried buffalo skin crisps and freshwater fish displayed in bamboo baskets.
