Food From Northern Laos

Walk through Luang Prabang's morning market in the cool season and you will see them stacked like green roof tiles: large, thin, olive-dark sheets, flecked with sesame seeds. This is kaipen — river weed, harvested from the Mekong and its tributaries, pressed into sheets, sun-dried, then fried for a few seconds until it crisps into something between a cracker, a chip and a sheet of nori. It is Luang Prabang's signature snack, and for most visitors the first bite comes with the same thought: why is this not everywhere? From the River to the Sheet The weed — a freshwater green algae — grows on rocks in clean, fast water during the cool, dry months, roughly November to April, when the Mekong runs low and clear. Harvesters, often women from riverside villages, wade out and gather it by hand, then wash it again and again; river weed demands patience before it demands anything else. The cleaned strands are spread on woven bamboo trays or bamboo frames, pressed flat into sheets, and de...