A love story

Bangbuathong (district), Nonthaburi Province, Thailand

This love story begins with Sunun Sukprasert, a Thai cook whose business is to prepare meals for the hungry rice farmers working in the rice fields. Her fresh ingredients come right from the farmland including the fish that breed in the canals used for the rice fields, as well as the snakes and field rats that live in the area. Some of her signature meals include Thai curry, snakehead fish spicy soup, and roasted field rat in red curry, which according to Sunun is quite healthy because field rats feed primarily on grass and worms. It was at work that she met Tong, a 50 year-old rice farmer who farms 40 acres.

He was trained in rice farming using a water buffalo when he was only 11 years old. Now he has plow machines that help with the cultivation of rice. They eventually formed a partnership where Tong would work the land, and Sunun would cook. It was a recipe for love.

In these images, Tong works the land and catches fish in the canals while Sunun prepares a field rat on an open fire. She caught the rat right in front of me, peeled the skin and skewered it like a shish kebab for cooking. They have two children and Sunun hopes to expand their three-wall house to build a more suitable home for their family. She says that she couldn’t be happier with her life partner.