Water beetles, snakes, crocodiles, balut (google it), crickets. Last night I added two more things to the tally of what I suppose people would call "weird food" I've eaten. A group of seven of us went to the weekend night market in Phuket - all with different ideas of what we wanted to see/ do. The market, in Phuket Town, is rather large - big enough to get lost in - and has everything you could want - clothes, rip-off DVDs and BluRay discs, knick knacks. But I was here for one thing - the food. Among more standard fare such as fish cakes, fried chicken, and cakes (which were all super good and cheap) and hiding in plain sight was a man in a plain, nondescript stall, wearing a surgical mask flash frying pre-cooked bugs and selling them for 20 baht. I wandered (wongdered) along the rows of food vendors with a friend several times looking for interesting food to try and I completely walked past this guy without noticing. (Maybe I should work on my observation skills). The smell and colours and cooking techniques of the stall holders was immense - almost an assault on your senses...but in a good way. This is what I came here for. At this stage I was a bit underwhelmed by the normalness (to me) of most of the food. For the record I had fish cakes, chicken on a stick, sticky rice, pearl tea and a donut filled with apple jelly. But I was left with a bug-shaped hole in my stomach which needed filling.
It wasn't until we had met up with the rest of the group (we decided to meet near the entrance at a certain time) that someone mentioned seeing the bugs. Perfect. Without hesitation Canadian Eric and instantly put our hands up as volunteers.
Piles of giant water bugs, grasshoppers, crickets and silk worms sat pre-cooked on metal trays ready for the eating. The stallholder still had quite a lot of each, so I'm not sure if he's really the most popular guy in the food hall. Maybe he's just that weird guy that wears a surgical mask and sells bugs every weekend. I don't know. After some consideration Eric and I, with some input from the rest of the group, decided on the silk worms and one giant water bug each. (Eric had said his dad got bitten by one in Canada once so this was kind of payback for that. Yeah, that THAT water bugs.) Twenty baht got us about 100 grams of silk worms and I think it was 20B each for the water bugs.
Now, I know what you're probably thinking - "Why the fudge would he eat that? He so cray!" (because you're gangsta like that.)
But you'd be wrong. I'm not that cray.
If you think about it, people wouldn't eat these kinds of things if it was bad for you. Its just about getting over that mental barrier which is the most difficult bit.
And, pound for pound, insects probably have more protein than some meat.
Standing in front of the stall, the consumption began.
Now even though you're a bit grossed out I know you want to know what it tastes like. The silk worms were firmer than you'd think they'd be and quite filling. The best thing I can think of to describe the texture of them is like eating a cooked fish egg sack, but that's probably not the most relateable things to compare it too. I suppose spongy is the right word. They tasted sort of nutty, and salty. The salt probably coming from what it was cooked in and mixed with. The water bug, which actually look strikingly like a giant cockroach was a bit different. It was clearly an insect - legs, wings, head. At least you could imagine the worms to be something else if that helped you put your mind at ease. They're just oval shaped.
We didn't get a lesson in how to eat a giant water bug, but I remember what my dad taught me about eating water beetles and ripped off the head to pull out most of the guts, but the head just came off. There was nothing left to do but put the whole thing down the hatch. It was a mouthful. A bit of chewing and paste eases itself out of the body. Its quite salty too, again, probably from what its cooked it. Taking another leaf out of the water beetle consumption guide I spat out the mangled, yet still recognisable, bug after I had extracted what was inside.
This is the kind of thing I came to South East Asia for. Mission accomplished.
Silk worms
Giant water bugs
The album:
2 comments:
That's so Wong!
Can I use this post for NZCA newsletter? -
Post a Comment