Ant egg soup is a Laotian dish made of ant eggs, mixed with snakehead fish, garlic, galangal, lemon grass. tamarind bean, lime juice, basil leaves, tomatoes and fish stock.

It is also the title of a book by Natacha Du Pont De Bie, a food tourist who wrote about her food hunting experience in Laos. The book features the people she met, the places she visited and of course the food she savored.

Ant Egg Soup is the first book I read to meet my goal for Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge that I will also list for the Foodies Read 2014 Challenge.

The goal of the Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge is to expand my horizons and read books set in or written by authors from countries other than the one I live in. I can visit as many different countries in books as I wish.

I set my goal to read food books regarding ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member countries and posted my plan in a post: Travel the World in Food Books  

Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) is a land-locked country with a population close to seven million. It is graced with mountains, plateaus, rivers and streams. Laos shares its border with China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar with the Mekong River flows from the north to the south.

Such unique geographical conditions undoubtedly influence the variety and taste of Lao cuisines.

Ant Egg Soup is not a cookbook, although the 14-chapter book includes quite a number of treasured recipes of traditional Lao food that Natascha collected during her travel.

Among the recipes is Padaek, Lao traditional fish sauce. Made from freshwater fish, salt and rice husks and fermented for 6 months to one year it is perfect to bring out the Lao flavor for foods such as tum maak hoong (papaya salad) and laap (meat or fish salad).

Natacha’s travel began in Vientiane, the capital of Laos where she observed traditional foods, went to the kitchens to learn how to prepare them and participated in a religious festival.

In Vang Vieng, a town 4 hours north of the capital, Natacha visited an organic mulberry farm. It was established to revive silk industry while training the locals in silkworm rearing and organic farming. Mulberry wine, mulberry tea and mulberry leaf tempura are some products available in the plantation.

I was immensely glad to read a number of ecotourism and environmentally related food activities flourished in the region even before schemes like farm to table or organic farms become popular.

Luang Prabang, a city 300 km north of Vientiane housed the Royal Palace where decades ago its chef Phia Sing cooked Laos cuisines for the Royal Family.

Alan Davidson, the British Ambassador to Laos (1973-1975) copied recipes from Phia Sing and published it into Traditional Recipes of Laos, which I am fortunate to own in addition to Ant Egg Soup. Alan Davidson eventually authored The Oxford Companion to Food and initiated the annual Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery.

Natacha continued her travel to Muang Noi, a hundred kilometer north of Nam Ou river; Luang Nam Tha in the North, Muang Sing, Nam Ha National Biodiversity Park, Ban Nalan; Muang Xai, Kung Si Falls, The Plain of Jars, Pakse, Champasak, and several other areas.

When I decided to participate in Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge and set my goal to travel to ASEAN countries through food books, I have never been to Laos before.  

A few weeks after posting the goal, strangely I had an opportunity to visit Vientiane. I spent half a day exploring this capital of Laos and snapped some pictures of the city and its landmarks as well as the Kuadin market and its food vendors.

In fact I bought the Ant Egg Soup book at Wattay International Airport in Vientiane and read it on the way from Vientiane to Jakarta where I live. I can relate to all parts of the book which has deeply enriched my knowledge about Laotian food, its history and culture as well as its pristine sightseeing spots.

Unfortunately I did not have a chance to taste a bowl of ant egg soup or kaeng paa sai kai mot daeng as they call it in Laos.

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Images: 123rf/Sutsaiy Sangharn: Ant Egg Soup. All others: Omar Niode Foundation