Posted: 2006-04-13 20:19:00
Do not forget to add in the list other less known “delicatessens” that I have seen to sale during my journeys, but not of them tasted.
(Please, stop reading if you are scrupulous!):
1 - Ants from Bucaramanga (Colombia). They are served in a box covered with chocolate and it is considered a good gift for a girl. Some eat them alive (I tried them fried in the Colombian Amazonas. The taste is like the Spanish jamon). You only eat the body, not the head and the antennas. These ants are enormous!
2 - Balut from Phillippines: this is a giant egg containing the fetus of the hen. Young boys sell them in a bucket for a few pesos in the streets of Plaza La Luneta, Manila, during the nights, shouting: Balut, balut…!!! First you drink the juice, and then eat the wings and body of the chicken. They say that it is aphrodisiac.
3 - Snakes blood and brains of monkeys in the streets of Taipei: The monkey is alive; you choose one, then the seller takes a hammer and hit the head of the poor monkey, taking out the brains that are served to you immediately in a plate. It is cruel and should be forbideen. The snakes are hanged, also alive, and when you select one of them, they take off the skin, then cut the head, pour the blood in a glass that the customer drinks, still hot, and a few minutes later he eats the meat of the snake cut in small pieces with the help of his chopsticks.
4 - North Korean dogs. This is a very common dish not only in both Koreas, but in China, Taiwan and Philippines. They are served and cooked like the pigs and are eaten with the hands.
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Please, do not hate me for this list. I know many more local exotic dishes, mainly in Africa, but for today is enough. Gastronomy is also culture and, I repeat, I have not tasted all the above mentioned products, only the Bucaramanga ants and some others insects and repellent beasts in Central America and Africa. Have you been in the Carnivore restaurant in Nairobi… it is an experience of a lifetime!
Buen apetito!
(Now, after writing this, I think that I am going to take some bicarbonate).
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Bonum est faciendum et prosequendum, et malum vitandum.
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