Poultry and Game

Chicken is a food which is highly esteemed by all the Lao people. Some cooked chicken often appears as one of the symbolic foods which are used at a baçi, the charming Lao ceremony which is described. Chicken is a main or subsidiary ingredient in many of Phia Sing’s recipes. One part of the chicken which he mentions frequently is the gizzard, known as tai. All chicken giblets are regarded as delicacies. Even the feet of the chicken are used in Lao cookery.

Ducks are less common in the markets, but are also prized as food. Lao families often raise their own ducks, for which the name is ped, in their gardens (i.e. the land round their houses—formal gardens are almost unknown in Laos, except for those belonging to palaces and the relatively small number of large villas or European-type houses which are to be found mainly in the two capital cities). The esteem in which duck meat is held is illustrated by a Lao superstition, that one should never serve duck to a visiting relation, since this might be thought to imply that you were presenting an honorific dish as a final farewell gesture to the visitor.