Bunly Uy missed home. In 2015, he moved from Cambodia to Maine at 22 to study sustainable agriculture and food systems at the College of the Atlantic. In pursuing his passion, though, he\u2019d left behind his community, his culture, and his cuisine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In those early days in America, it was Cambodian food Uy most longed for\u2014the soups, curries, and rice dishes that married fresh and fermented, striking the perfect balance of sweet, sour, salty, and umami. At one point, he traveled all the way to Long Beach, California, home of the country\u2019s largest Cambodian population, in search of connection and familiar flavors.<\/p>\n
Among the foods Uy missed most, salted crab, or kdam prai, held a special place. Before he moved from a village in Kampot province, in southwestern Cambodia, to Phnom Penh, the capital, he often went into the nearby rice fields with his family, where small brown crabs burrowed into the wet mud of the paddies. After harvesting\u2014which kept the crabs from damaging the crop\u2014they cleaned and soaked them for two days in fish sauce, sugar, and garlic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are showing how immigrants impact our communities and contribute to culture, economy, and ecology.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
His family\u2019s salted crab, chopped up with the shells still on, starred as an unmistakable ingredient in papaya salad, more for the distinct flavor it imparted than the meager meat it offered. Marinated in lime, Thai basil, chili peppers, and more garlic, it was also served as a side dish alongside rice. Salted crab was everywhere in Cambodia. In the U.S., even a frozen import was hard to find; fresh was unthinkable.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the small things you miss, especially when you don\u2019t have access,\u201d Uy says.<\/p>\n
A decade later, Uy is bringing kdam prai to Maine. He\u2019s now the food and farm program manager at Khmer Maine, a nonprofit<\/a> serving Portland\u2019s 2,000-plus Cambodian residents through cultural exchange, community building, and civic engagement. And he\u2019s marrying his past and present by developing a salted crab product featuring an invasive species from the Gulf of Maine, protecting the state\u2019s marine ecosystem while feeding his community.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Khmer Maine\u2019s Bunly Uy with European green crabs. (Photo credit: Neil Stanton)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In Cambodia, resourceful farmers and cooks turned a crop-damaging pest\u2014the rice-paddy crab \u2014into a culinary staple. Uy\u2019s new home is dealing with its own nuisance crustacean: the European green crab<\/a>, a voracious invasive predator that has taken a bite out of Maine\u2019s critical fisheries by feeding on soft-shell clams and juvenile lobsters. Green crabs have also contributed to steep declines in eelgrass biomass<\/a> in the Gulf of Maine by damaging rhizomes and young plants as they burrow for shelter and dig for prey.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n All this is happening as the Gulf of Maine warms faster than 99 percent<\/a> of the world\u2019s oceans, creating increasingly hospitable conditions for the green crab to proliferate. In this ecological crisis, Uy and his colleagues saw opportunity.<\/p>\n With help from a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Business Builder grant<\/a>, Khmer Maine is preparing to launch its own kdam prai,<\/i> made from locally harvested green crabs. The project has also connected Maine\u2019s Cambodian community with GreenCrab.org, a nonprofit leading a regional effort to mitigate the crabs\u2019 environmental impact by turning them into a food source.<\/p>\n Gobbling up green crabs<\/a> is part of a broader movement that has also put lionfish<\/a>, feral pigs<\/a>, kudzu<\/a>, and Asian carp<\/a> on dinner plates and restaurant menus to stanch the spread of invasive species. Joe Roman, a conservation biologist who developed the concept of invasivorism<\/a> 25 years ago, describes it as \u201ca form of biological control\u201d with the human appetite as the agent of change.<\/p>\n For Marpheen Chann, who founded Khmer Maine in 2018 to unite his community, salted crab offers a way to share a meaningful message while helping to address the green crab problem.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are showing how immigrants impact our communities and contribute to culture, economy, and ecology,\u201d Chann says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Khmer Maine\u2019s Bunly Uy (far left) processes European green crabs for kdam prai\u00a0with Cambodian elders at Portland\u2019s Fork Food Lab. (Photo credit: Mary Parks \/ GreenCrab.org)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It turns out that Uy and Chann weren\u2019t the first to think of pairing green crabs with Cambodian cuisine. Some community elders have been cooking with them for at least a decade, according to Mary Parks, executive director of GreenCrab.org<\/a>. But their idea took off after a Cambodian New Year celebration<\/a> in April 2022 when Khmer Maine organized a one-time crab giveaway, hoping to learn more about how people used\u2014or might use\u2014the crustaceans. In just a few hours, more than 1,200 pounds of crab vanished into the hands and homes of eager Cambodian cooks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThey hold a reminder of home,\u201d Chann says of green crabs. \u201cSome of the grandmothers, the way they look at these crabs, there\u2019s a light in their eyes. They recognize the shape and size of the crab and exactly what it can be used for.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the grandmothers, the way they look at these crabs, there\u2019s a light in their eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Although feedback from the giveaway suggested the Cambodian community wasn\u2019t a suitable wholesale market for fresh crabs, Chann saw potential in a value-added product\u2014especially one that could make the crabs available through Maine\u2019s long winters, when they hide until spring. Khmer Maine received the USDA grant in 2025, securing around $78,000 to create a salted crab product that could address that need. Last fall, Chann and Uy started developing their recipe with support and guidance from some of the community\u2019s elders.<\/p>\n Sokhuon Ou was eager to help. After nearly a decade away from home, she still misses the salted crab she used to eat with her siblings.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are the most delicious food,\u201d she says through an interpreter.<\/p>\n During two test batches made at Fork Food Lab, a Portland commercial kitchen and business incubator, a half-dozen elders, including Ou, helped Chann and Uy with the hard work of preparing salted crab, scrubbing sinks full of feisty crabs to douse in the brine. They shared stories and memories in their native Khmer language to pass the time. As soon as Uy opened a bucket of the finished product for packaging, the elders began clamoring for a taste, he says. Then they packaged 500 pounds of crab into vacuum-sealed bags and went home with some samples.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Khmer](\"https:\/\/civileats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/maines-cambodian-community-aims-to-keep-invasive-green-crabs-at-bay-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"2-Khmer](\"https:\/\/civileats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/maines-cambodian-community-aims-to-keep-invasive-green-crabs-at-bay-2.jpg\")
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