Early morning paints yellow stripes on the garden as Plantina Mujai selects a pumpkin. Carrying it inside, she hoists the gourd onto the kitchen counter, then turns to boiling fat red grains of red rice in a large steel pot and preparing round mounds of yam to cook with meat. After Mujai sorts her vegetables, she picks her main ingredient for the day: chutney ktung tyndong bad sohkhymphor, a paste made from papaya and dried fish, smoked in bamboo over hot ash for 10 days. Mujai is the owner of…
