© Liz Price
Deep-fried spiders, anyone?
Insects on menu: Spiders, beetles, grasshoppers and other arthropods are considered delicacies in many parts of SE Asia. Cambodians love spiders so much so that the town of Skuon has been nicknamed Spiderville. Pictures: Liz Price
Sunday, July 13, 2008
THE other day I found a cooked caterpillar in the vegetables on my plate. In my disgust I pushed it to one side, wondering how many more I'd missed lurking in the cauliflower. Yet earlier the same month I had quite happily sampled fried termites and bamboo worms in Cambodia.
Insect food is quite common in several areas of Southeast Asia. One particular delicacy in Cambodia, which I haven't been able to brave, are spiders. I just couldn't bring myself to try them. Although I don't suffer from arachnophobia, and in fact I quite like spiders, I just don't fancy the idea of eating them. Maybe it is their large size and eight legs that put me off.
Cambodians love them, so much so that the town of Skuon has been nicknamed Spiderville. I don't know why this particular town has been chosen as the spider city of Cambodia. It is just a small town located in Kampong Cham, northeast of the capital Phnom Penh.
It is said that the locals eat the spiders for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don't know how true that is, but the spiders are readily available, piled high on platters and sold on the streets.
I have sampled various kinds of insect food, all of which were smaller than spiders, and therefore relatively more palatable. Sometimes I had problems when biting into a bug; a nasty brown sludge would ooze out. This could be anything from eggs to excreta. That was particularly off-putting and I would imagine that eating a larger spider would result in more gunge. Apparently the best way to eat a spider is to pretend it is a crab, and crack the body open and pull off the legs one by one to reveal the tasty flesh.
In the wild, the spiders live in holes in the ground and in forested areas. They seem to be abundant in the area north of Skuon. The Skuon spiders belong to the tarantula family. Alive they are palm sized, but when caught, they are pan fried with lots of garlic and salt. If they are fried until the legs are stiff then the contents of the abdomen are said to be less runny. Ideally they should be eaten piping hot, but the ones I saw in Phnom Penh were cold and looked unappetising.
At around US$0.10 ($0.14) a spider, if a woman can sell between 100-200 arachnids a day, that is relatively good money in Cambodia where around one third of people live below a poverty line of US$1 per day.
It is not clear how the fascination in eating spiders came about. It may have started during the Khmer Rouge rule when starving Cambodians ate anything they could. During those days of the Killing Fields the locals ate many grubs and insects.
Since then the spiders have transformed from a vital food source of desperate refugees into a tasty national delicacy, known as a-ping in Khmer.
In Phnom Penh in 2004 I saw several women selling spiders and other insects outside Central Market. But on a return this year, I saw far less spiders for sale. Maybe the wild stock is becoming exhausted due to over harvesting. It is a fact that in Malaysia tarantula spiders are overhunted to supply the overseas pet trade, not for culinary delights.
Cambodians love the taste, and compare it to that of crickets. But they also believe the spiders have medicinal properties. During Khmer Rouge times they were used as a traditional medicine. Now they are often mixed in rice wine and are said to be good for back ache. Long distance truck drivers are fond of drinking the liquor with a rotting spider floating around in the bottle.
So if you go to Cambodia, and particularly to Skuon, do try the spiders!
The Brunei Times
Insect food is quite common in several areas of Southeast Asia. One particular delicacy in Cambodia, which I haven't been able to brave, are spiders. I just couldn't bring myself to try them. Although I don't suffer from arachnophobia, and in fact I quite like spiders, I just don't fancy the idea of eating them. Maybe it is their large size and eight legs that put me off.
Cambodians love them, so much so that the town of Skuon has been nicknamed Spiderville. I don't know why this particular town has been chosen as the spider city of Cambodia. It is just a small town located in Kampong Cham, northeast of the capital Phnom Penh.
It is said that the locals eat the spiders for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don't know how true that is, but the spiders are readily available, piled high on platters and sold on the streets.
I have sampled various kinds of insect food, all of which were smaller than spiders, and therefore relatively more palatable. Sometimes I had problems when biting into a bug; a nasty brown sludge would ooze out. This could be anything from eggs to excreta. That was particularly off-putting and I would imagine that eating a larger spider would result in more gunge. Apparently the best way to eat a spider is to pretend it is a crab, and crack the body open and pull off the legs one by one to reveal the tasty flesh.
In the wild, the spiders live in holes in the ground and in forested areas. They seem to be abundant in the area north of Skuon. The Skuon spiders belong to the tarantula family. Alive they are palm sized, but when caught, they are pan fried with lots of garlic and salt. If they are fried until the legs are stiff then the contents of the abdomen are said to be less runny. Ideally they should be eaten piping hot, but the ones I saw in Phnom Penh were cold and looked unappetising.
At around US$0.10 ($0.14) a spider, if a woman can sell between 100-200 arachnids a day, that is relatively good money in Cambodia where around one third of people live below a poverty line of US$1 per day.
It is not clear how the fascination in eating spiders came about. It may have started during the Khmer Rouge rule when starving Cambodians ate anything they could. During those days of the Killing Fields the locals ate many grubs and insects.
Since then the spiders have transformed from a vital food source of desperate refugees into a tasty national delicacy, known as a-ping in Khmer.
In Phnom Penh in 2004 I saw several women selling spiders and other insects outside Central Market. But on a return this year, I saw far less spiders for sale. Maybe the wild stock is becoming exhausted due to over harvesting. It is a fact that in Malaysia tarantula spiders are overhunted to supply the overseas pet trade, not for culinary delights.
Cambodians love the taste, and compare it to that of crickets. But they also believe the spiders have medicinal properties. During Khmer Rouge times they were used as a traditional medicine. Now they are often mixed in rice wine and are said to be good for back ache. Long distance truck drivers are fond of drinking the liquor with a rotting spider floating around in the bottle.
So if you go to Cambodia, and particularly to Skuon, do try the spiders!
The Brunei Times
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Source URL:
http://www.bt.com.bn/en/en/travel/2008/07/13/deep_fried_spiders_anyone
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