Palm sugar

Who has never seen a palm tree or at least seen a picture of one? Here is a picture of one that we saw with our tuk tuk driver as we visited the Angkor Wat sites. 

Notice how they attached a bamboo to the tree to make a ladder!

They use the ladder to climb up and reach the palm flowers. There are male and female flowers, I thought that was interesting. The flowers don't really look like flowers though, they look more like green banches with little spikes about the size of my forearm. For about 2 weeks, they climb up every day and use a wooden tool to squeeze the flowers in order to soften them. After this, they cut the tip, a little more everyday, and collect the sap in small bamboo containers. 

They boil the sap for several hours and then they cool it of while stirring continuously. It reminded me of maple butter! It tasted different and yummy and was even sweeter then I expected!