Food

Locals and foreign visitors will be able to treat their tastebuds to a feast of Lao dishes from all over the country during the Food Festival 2010 at the National Culture Hall in Vientiane next weekend.

The festival was announced yesterday at a press conference by the Lao Women’s Union, Lao Journalists’ Association and Lao Women’s Business Association, who are organising the event on February 5-7.

The event will celebrate the 55th Anniversary of Lao Women’s Union Day as well as various other national days. It will also promote Lao dishes from Huaphan, Xiengkhuang, Luang Prabang, Borikhamxay, Savannakhet and Champassak provinces.

You might think that mixing poisonous reptiles with alcoholic beverages may be dangerous, but Uncle Somseuy, 74, believes that when such reptiles are pickled in plonk, the poison is dissipated leaving a potent potion beneficial to health.

He describes the end product as the best medicinal beverage one can imagine.

Horsieng village is in the town of Luang Prabang, alongside the Mekong River.

There, passers-by may notice a small sign written on a simple piece of paper.

(KPL) The Korean government has provided 392 tonnes of nutritious food aid worth US$500,000 to malnourished students in rural and remote areas in Laos.

The aid package is made up of maize flour, soymilk, vitamins, white rice and other items.

The foodstuff would be distributed to 50,000 students in 417 schools in the northern Oudomsay province, where they have suffered from malnutrition. The handover ceremony took place at KM17 Tha-ngone warehouse, Saythany district, Vientiane Capital, on 15 January.

With high demand and insufficient local production, animal feed remains among the nation’s largest agricultural imports.

Laos imports many products from different countries because local producers cannot meet market demand, with imports of animal feed and fertilisers rising as farmers raise more animals and cultivate more cash crops.

(KPL) Over the past five years, 2005-2010, the Vientiane agriculture and forestry sector has produced sufficient foodstuff for the people of the province and even with some surplus.

This was said by the Party Secretary of the Committee of Vientiane’s Agriculture and Forestry Service, Mr. Lasnivong Amalathithada, during the 5th Party Cell’s meeting of the Vientiane Agriculture and Forestry Service, held here on 12 January.

Mr. Lasnivong Amalathithada who is also the head of Vientiane’s Agriculture and Forestry Service, also gave a briefing on the achievements of the sector over a period of five years.

(KPL) The National Association of Agricultural Production and Processing is accelerating the promotion of agricultural production and meat production so as to ensure enough supply of foodstuff to society.

Currently, the foodstuff consumption in society is high. In particular, the daily demand for pork in Vientiane Capital is about 450 pigs but the local supply capacity meets only half of the demand.

This figure indicates that last year the supply of foodstuff was inadequate. The National Association of Agricultural Production and Processing was established in April 2009. Since then it has been working actively and united individual farms nationwide.

In Lao families, if elders or parents see their children eating like horses with noisy chewing, they will tell them to please eat quietly and be polite while eating together.

Elders keep reminding their children of this because Lao people have good manners when eating.

A Lao household typically comprises grandparents, parents, children, nieces and nephews all living in the same house.

School children and victims of tropical storm Ketsana in the southern provinces will soon receive aid from the government of Japan.

According to a press release issued by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Laos, the government of Japan has donated 316 tonnes of canned fish worth more than US$1.2 million to help people cope in the aftermath of the storm, which hit Laos at the end of September.

Victims of natural disasters and vulnerable people will receive rice under a new stockpile project as soon as the details are approved by the government.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare has submitted plans for a rice stockpile project worth more than 11 billion kip for consideration by the government secretariat.

The ministry’s Social Welfare Department Director General, Mr Pasith Detphommathed, told Vientiane Times yesterday the rice is expected to be distributed soon.

(KPL) Farmers in Champassak have already harvested 90 percent of the rainy season rice crop with an estimated yield of around 337,000 tonnes, according to Head of Plantation Division, Champasak Agriculture and Forestry Service.

Mr. Xaythongyoth Nammavongsa, whose post is mentioned earlier, said last week that most farmers began their rice harvesting in mid-November and is expected to be over this month.