He brings home a suitcase full of pepper

Traditionally, pepper is grown on wooden stakes. Starling Farm built these brick towers which last longer than the wood and support more vines.

Kampot pepper ripned on the vine. COURTESY HIM ANNA, STARLING FARM

Kampot pepper is organically grown and the farmers use many of the same techniques as their ancestors.

Dec. 30, 2010
BY TOM GORDON
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER (California, USA)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Tom Gordon, an editor at The Register, is starting a nonprofit that will sell Cambodian pepper in the United States. The money raised will help a group that works to help retrain former sex workers in Cambodia This is the last of a three-part story.

Pol Pot killed one, maybe two million people back in the 1970s. Pol Pot liked killing people.

But evidently he didn't like pepper. Pol Pot ordered acres of pepper vines in the Kampot province of western Cambodia ripped out and rice planted in its place.

History has not been kind to Pol Pot.

On the other hand, Chef Oge Dalken, who is creating the menu for the soon-to-open Chapter One: the modern local restaurant in downtown Santa Ana, is a big fan of Kampot pepper.

"The pepper is damn good – and you can say damn good because that's the way I feel about. I am using it as the basic seasoning in all my dishes," says Chef Dalken. He has plans to use Cambodian pepper on duck, New York steaks and possibly in a martini.
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