Some Thai Food Has Six Legs

Many people enjoy Thai food worldwide: spicy soups and salads, flavorful rice dishes are abundant. But in Thailand, fried or roasted insects and scorpions are also popular, readily available, and inexpensive. Insects have traditionally been a rich source of protein, calories, vitamins, and minerals in the Northern Thailand diet. They are also prized as delicacies. In fact , it is unusual to find an insect which is not eaten in one form or another by local people. Among the most popular are:

cicadas, locusts, mantises, crickets, and grasshoppers which are all deep fried and are rather crunchy;

bamboo worms, which are also deep fried;

giant water bugs, which are steamed; they are also ground into a paste with chili and eaten with sticky rice;

weaver ants (red ants with a painful bite) and their eggs; sticky rice is dipped into a mixture of ants, eggs, and chili;

dung beetles; which add a wholesome flavor to curries; however, many people will not eat them because they live in and on excrement.

In addition, Thai people will eat

the pupae of silk moths and other moths and butterflies; you must first remove the pupae from their cocoons, then boil them until soft with a pinch of salt, finally saut them lightly; the larvae of wasps and bees; these are deep-fried;

I haven’t seen other spiders eaten, but I suspect if it moves, it’s considered food somewhere. Also, termites (large white ants) are grilled and their eggs are a delicacy used to make a flavorful soup. Where I lived in Bangkok, Sukhumvit Soi 4, every night starting around 5:00 PM, there was a street vendor with half a dozen kinds of fried and grilled insects and scorpions; her customers were mainly the bar girls in the area. Every night she was quite busy as the girls consider these insects a tasty snack, and munch on them as frequently as Western people munch on potato chips. The lady vendor does not speak any English, but will pose with her wares for a photograph if you give her a 20 baht (about 60 cents) tip. And if you’re brave, you could always buy a bag of deep fried bamboo worms…

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