Lue Blog

Yesterday my neighbor called and asked if I would go help her shuck corn.   When I got there several of her relatives were there helping out including several children.   The men loaded the unshucked ears on the back of the hopper while the women fed the grain into bags (see photo).  The kids played on the pile of husks made by the ever-spewing hopper.

Afterwards, we all sat down to a lunch made up of minced raw pork, bile, garlic and hot peppers.  The meal was eaten by dipping warm sticky rice into the meat mixture and then scooped up with your fingers (kinda like eating chips and salsa).   There were also several bitter leaves to accompany the dish.

“It used to not be necessary to put fertilizer in the soil,” Praphan said, “The soil was black and the rice plants were twice as tall at this stage of maturity.”  We were taking a break from sowing the nitrogen pellets when talked about the history of the rice fields.