วันศุกร์ที่ 15 มีนาคม พ.ศ. 2556

Eggs of the giant black (Escamoles)




Escamoles are the eggs of the giant black Liometopum ant, which makes its home in the root systems of maguey and agave plants. Collecting the eggs is a uniquely unpleasant job, since the ants are highly venomous and have some kind of blood grudge against human orifices.
The eggs have the consistency of cottage cheese. The most popular way to eat them is in a taco with guacamole, while being fucking insane.




Escamoles (ant larvae) has been called “Mexican caviar” since at least 1989 and most commonly holds the nickname today.  If you’ve spent any time in Mexico, you’ve probably seen the maguey cactus; it’s practically the home for this exotic and nutritional ‘worm’. You can harvest the ant larvae from the beginning of the rainy season in the spring until late autumn.




Mexico have a native dish called ‘escamoles’ in Central Mexico, once considered a delicacy by the Aztecs. As far as insect-related pre-Hispanic foods go, this one is better than it sounds. The light-colored eggs, resemble white-corn kernels or pine nuts. Often pan-fried with butter and spices, escamoles can be found in tacos and omelets or served alone, accompanied by guacamole and tortillas. It’s indigenous, tasty, and memorable, without the gross-out factor of those fried crickets and bugs (another common pre-Hispanic insect food). Those who enjoy escamoles say they’re creamy like cottage cheese, with a buttery, nutty flavor.




Escamoles have a surprisingly pleasant taste: buttery and slightly nutty. This hugely increases the chances that, while in Mexico, you could eat them without realizing you are eating a taco full of fucking ant eggs


Liometopum ants are among the most voracious of aphid predators; which together with the impossibility of reproducing all year, makes it difficult to use and makes the escamoles in a very expensive dish. Aphids feed by sucking plant juices, which is damaging enough, but the most serious damage comes from the plant diseases they carry. They also produce honeydew. This can grow an unsightly, and potentially fatal, sooty black mold, which hoses off, or washes off with soapy water. Aphids multiply so rapidly because they’re born pregnant. In fact, there are tiny secondary embryos inside the first embryos. The damage they do to plants has made them enemies of farmers and gardeners the world over, but from a zoological standpoint they are a very successful group of organisms. Their success is in part due to the asexual reproduction capability of some species.


The Escamoles contain between 40 and 60% protein, plus fats, vitamins and minerals. This is a much higher percentage than that of the protein of beef (17-21.5%) and chicken











วันพุธที่ 13 มีนาคม พ.ศ. 2556

IGUANA SOUP





IGUANA MEAT is next on our list. It was a very important part of Mexico’s culinary tradition, but now the consumption has decreased considerably. Iguana meat is currently illegal in the USA and some other countries; maybe one of the reasons for the decrease in the consumption of this once cherished delicacy? Both the Black and Green iguana have been eaten in the area, although the Green iguana seemed to gather more followers. To properly cook an iguana it has to be parboiled for up to thirty minutes before roasting or stewing it. Some of the preferred recipes include stews, soups, roasted and used in fillings for tacos and flautas







Iguanas are eaten year round throughout Central and South America, but they’re are especially popular during Holy Week (the week before Lent begins) in Nicaragua. Unfortunately, Green Iguana females ovulate right around April, and so during Holy Week the iguanas are swollen with eggs, making the consumption of them during that time period particularly disastrous for the Iguana population.

For this reason the Nicaraguan government has banned the killing of Green Iguanas, although the traditional preparation of the iguanas into a soupy dish called Indio Viejo, persists.




วันอังคารที่ 12 มีนาคม พ.ศ. 2556

Drink Baby Mice Wine




Baby mice wine is a traditional Chinese and Korean "health tonic," which apparently tastes like raw gasoline. Little mice, eyes still closed, are plucked from the embrace of their loving mothers and stuffed (while still alive) into a bottle of rice wine. They are left to ferment while their parents wring their tiny mouse paws in despair, tears drooping sadly from the tips of their whiskers.











It isn't just one mouse, but many of them floating at the bottom of the bottle.
































Field mouse wine is said to be good for driving out wind, clearing up meridians, and improving blood circulation































Just one or two glasses of baby mouse wine are enough to get you hammered, but because of its horrible smell and taste, most people should have to worry about that.




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วันอาทิตย์ที่ 10 มีนาคม พ.ศ. 2556

Balut eggs


Although Balut is served all over Asia, the Philippines are best known for this snack of boiled, fertlized duck eggs. Balut is prepared by boiling the fertilized eggs around 15 days after they are laid, just a few days before the embryo is ready to hatch. The eggs are then stored in buckets of sand to maintain their heat and are served warm. They are particularly popular as a drinking snack in night markets around Cambodia, not only because some people find them delicious, but because they are said to be a powerful aphrodisiac and improve virility in men.




Balut eggs (also spelled Baloot, Baalut, Baluge, or Balute.)

Balut eggs are fertilised duck (sometimes chicken) eggs that are at the stage of development where there is a nearly developed embryo inside. The balut egg then boiled and usually eaten with salt, just like a normal boiled egg.




Balut eggs can typically be purchased from a street vendor who will often keep them warm in a bucket of sand. Duck eggs that are not properly developed after nine to twelve days are not sold as balut eggs but instead sold as penoy, which look, smell and taste similar to a regular hard-boiled egg. In Filipino cuisine, these are occasionally beaten and fried, similar to scrambled eggs, and served with a vinegar dip.





Fried Tarantulas


If you are courageous enough to think of a spider as a meal, read on. In Skuon district in Cambodia, big tarantula spiders are fried whole and eaten with relish. The dish was invented during the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge, when people were forced to starve to death. The dish invented under trying circumstances has now become a tourist attraction with people visiting Skuon from far and wide to taste this frightening delicacy.



Although these little guys are fried up all over Cambodia, the Sukon Market is known for serving the tastiest fried Tarantulas and have developed a bit of a cult following – tourists and locals come to Sukon specifically to get their fix. The type of tarantula used for this snack is called a-ping and they are a palm-sized variety that are locally caught by the street vendors who sell them by the hundreds for around 8 cents USD.



To prepare them, the tarantulas are pan fried whole, with their legs and fangs still attached, with only a pinch of garlic and salt for flavor. Even though their preparation is relatively simple, people rave they have a great natural flavor and that their consistency, crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside, is particularly unique and delicious.


A young Khmer girl eating deep-fried tarantula, a speciality of the Cambodian town of Skuon, north of the capital, Phnom Penh. The species is the Edible Tarantula, Haplopelma Albostriatum. A live tarantula crawls up her blouse

Amh.. My delicious dinner.

วันเสาร์ที่ 9 มีนาคม พ.ศ. 2556

Snake Soup

One recipe that is unusual but said to be effective as a cure for arthritis is snake soup.Although frequently seen in small countryside restaurants, particularly in the south of China, snake is not a common dish. It is considered something of an expensive delicacy, to be resorted to only for purposes of restoring good health. Snake meat has a delicate flavor, somewhere between that of chicken and fish. It is highly prized in China. Fresh snake blood and snake bile are drunk with rice spirit; they are said to augment qi and to reinforce the internal organs of digestion. Snake meat is normally eaten in a soup, with the bones included as part of the broth




Although Snake Soup is a traditional dish eaten all over China, the very best version of this delicacy comes from Kweilin Street in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong. This street is famous for snake that is so fresh, the reptiles are still alive when you pick them. Snake lovers flock to Kweilin street mostly between mid-November to April, when the consumption of snake soup is seen as a necessity by many Cantonese.



In Cantonese culture, many firmly believe that snake soup is essential to provide an “inner warmth that stays with you long after the bowl of soup has been eaten”. This inner warmth is credited with keeping off the cool winter air and keeping you healthy and fortified against winter colds and the flu. Snakes are so popular during the winter months, close to 200,000 live snakes are shipped into Hong Kong every year along with many tons of frozen snake meat.




A favourite winter warmer in Hong Kong, snake soup is considered somewhat of a gourmet dish. Most of the city's snake meat is now delivered chilled or frozen from China, but to try the meat and the soup at its best you need to have it fresh, which means braving the handful of live snake restaurants that still exist in Kowloon. Here, you pluck your favourite python or cobra from behind a cage and watch him slither to the chopping block, with more unusual snakes attracting heavier price tags. The soup comes with the snake shredded inside, although, if you're braver, you can try sliced snake in a host of other dishes. As it seems with almost all exotic meats, many say it tastes like chicken.




วันศุกร์ที่ 8 มีนาคม พ.ศ. 2556

Ox penis recipe



Also known as Ox penis's is a common dish in parts of Asia and Jamaica and is eaten by itself or in soups. In Jamaica Ox penis' are called 'cow cods' and in China a Oxl's penis is considered to be a strong aphrodisiac and is said to have properties similar to Viagra. Personally, if I had to eat one of those things, I'd be struggling to find my libido for a few weeks after! Below is a picture of ox penis, gent's, don't get jealous.

Ox penis sold by supermarket








Ox penis stew look tasty...not for me



วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 7 มีนาคม พ.ศ. 2556

Do you believe people eat monkey brains.

To this day there is no conclusive evidence if monkey brain was ever a real food anywhere in the world.
I can say with 100% certainty that somewhere, at some point in history, someone took a monkey and ate its brain.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_brains_(cuisine)


Monkey brain is a controversial foodstuff, often attributed to the Chinese, but also found in certain other countries. The practice of eating monkey brains has led to over-hunting in Indonesia, especially due to the belief that eating the monkeys' brain can cure impotence.
In Western popular culture, the consumption of monkey brains is repeatedly portrayed and debated, often in the context of portraying exotic cultures as exceptionally cruel, callous and strange. It is often portrayed as follows:

  • the brain is eaten cooked.
  • the brain is eaten raw (occasionally directly out of the dead monkey's skull).
  • the brain is eaten fresh, spooned out of the skull while the monkey is still alive.





In expensive resturants throughout Japan, there is a delicacy more unusual than eating snails and more freightening than poached lobster, this cuisine is the brain of a live monkey.

Patrons delight in sucking the monkey's brain through a metal straw while the corpse of the monkey twitches erratically in a harness and shackles