After arriving in the US in 1972, Narin Seng Jameson became homesick and yearned for the food of her childhood as a way to stay connected to home. After much research and persistence, she is now releasing the cookbook, “Cooking the Cambodian Way: The Intertwined Story of Cooking and Culture in Cambodia” as a way to preserve the traditional Cambodian recipes from the 1950's and 60's, the era of relative calm and peace, prior to the Khmer Rouge regime take over. She hopes the cookbook will reach young Cambodians/Americans who do not know how to cook the traditional recipes of their heritage. All proceeds of the book will go to the U.S. NGO, “Caring for Cambodia” To furthering the development of Cambodia especially in education.
Narin Seng Jameson came to the U.S. in 1972 with the hope to further her education and return to the homeland when Cambodia regains Peace, before the Khmer Rouge regime took power. She embarked on a study abroad program in Washington D.C. from the University of Phnom Penh and was able to be closer to her older sister, who was a Counselor at the Embassy of Cambodia. When Cambodia was taken over by the Maoist Khmer Rouge in 1975, it became impossible for Jameson to return home for the fifteen years under the dictator, Pol Pot.
Similar to most first year college students who study far away from home, Jameson had to learn to be independent, while simultaneously experiencing strong feelings of homesickness. She yearned for the traditional dishes that her family had made for her when growing up in Phnom Penh, because they brought back fond memories that she cherished. Jameson had memory of her childhood spent in the family kitchen and watched how the cook prepared the food and the comments made from her mother on what to add and what to reduce but no idea on how to find the ingredients as they are not available in the early 70s in the Washington metropolitan area. She decided to experiment Cambodian recipes from the 50s and 60s with the ingredients that friends and family provided to her, it was at that time she learned the substitutes of Khmer ingredients. The 50s and 60s represented Peace and Happiness in her childhood, she called it the Golden Era of Cambodia, before the war and violence in Cambodia began.
After many years of experimenting cooking while living with her sister and while living abroad as a spouse of a U.S. Foreign Service officer in different countries and entertained host dignitaries and fellow diplomats, Jameson’s interest in cooking continued and started to contribute recipes to many cookbooks that were created by different organizations she was a member of, including: the women’s association at The National War College in Washington D.C., The New Zealand Poultry Association in Wellington, and The International Cookery Group in Yangon, Myanmar. In May 1995, the Washington Post published some of her Cambodian recipes in their Food Section. She participated at the 7th Annual Asians in America Conference in NYU in 2001, Jameson has been an active board member at the Cambodian Buddhist Temple in Silver Spring, Maryland where she helps organize the education program, substitutes as a Khmer language teacher, and assists in the teaching of the Cambodian dance and Dhamma. After retiring from the World Bank Jameson becomes a consultant in the same organization.
Red Spicy Paste Recipe:
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