Not Just An Ordinary Egg

Going back to my Cambodian roots again, one popular dish is the balut egg, which is different from a regular egg in that the embryo is more developed.  Cracking a balut egg open, one can see a baby duck's head, feathers, eyes beak, and claws.  I grew up eating this dish with lemon juice mixed with salt and pepper, and mint leaves.  I never really thought about how gross this food may appear because when you're just a kid, you eat what ever your parents eat.  So to me, eating balut is normal because I grew up with others eating the exact same thing.  However, now that I am older, I pay more attention to what I eat.  Especially now that I work in a chick lab doing research with chick embryos, I feel a little more insecure about eating balut.  I guess when you get older, you become more aware of what you put in your body, and that's why I no longer eat balut because I feel you should just eat full grown duck, or just a plain egg, but not a baby duck in an egg.

Snake Jerky

This isn't beef jerky!  A popular dish in Cambodia in addition to dried fish is the dried snake meat.  Although it doesn't look like snake, the process that it takes to convert this meat to dried meat changes its overall gruesome image of a slithering and hissing creature to somewhat edible food.   I tried this snake jerky without realizing this was snake.  Luckily, I did not know that it was snake otherwise I would have never tried it.  To my surprise, this tasted very flavorful- even better than beef jerky!  I think sometimes the thought of the reptile itself ruins the appetite, but what I've learned is that sometimes the most disgusting looking things taste better than food with a appetizing appearance.  Looks can definitely be deceiving!  What I recommend is that people try this snake jerky with porridge.  Since porridge is basically extra water with rice, its neutral flavor completes the somewhat salty yet satisfying flavor of snake jerky.  It's unlike anything I've ever tasted in my life, and if I could recommend this dish to anyone, this would definitely be the winner!

I do not know the type of snake that is used to make this snake jerky.  However, I do know that this snake jerky is popular among Cambodian villagers.  Part of the process to making snake jerky is the thin slicing of the meat, and leaving it out in the hot sun to dry.  People who love eating beef jerky will love eating snake jerky even more!

Bloody Clams

One of my favorite seafood has always been known to me as the bloody clams.    Growing up, my mom would cook these clams by boiling them, and making a dip which consisted of lemon juice, salt, and black pepper.  These clams actually have blood, but they are super delicious.  My sister and I would have a competition of who could eat the most bloody clams, counting the shells piled up at the end of our meals.  I think this may strike other people as a strange dish because normally one does not associate blood with clams.  Since I grew up with this dish, I do not think it's strange at all.  In fact I really recommend adventurous people to try bloody clams with rice.   I have never seen these clams in American grocery stores yet.  Usually, these clams are sold in asian supermarkets.  One can spot these clams by recognizing the gray white color, and deep ridges on the shell.  

Crunchy Fried Scorpions

When I went to Beijing for the first time in January of 2009, I never thought I'd see so many different variety of foods.  The shocker was live scorpion skewers!   At first I thought they were poisonous, and wondered if these creatures would sting the predator in the mouth as it was being eaten.  My second thought was that these scorpions were dead, but with a closer look, I saw moving tails and wiggling legs.  My third thought was that there was no way I was going to try one since I knew scorpions are poisonous.  If they were dead, there may be a chance to avoid the poisonous sting, but since they were alive, they were still capable to strike at any given opportunity.  To my surprise, my boyfriend ordered two skewers, one for me and one for him.  After paying cash, the cook tossed two of these live scorpions skewers in the deep fryer.  It was then I knew that there was no eating live scorpions.  I really did not have the appetite for scorpion, but my boyfriend insisted they tasted good, and were not poisonous.  Since these scorpions were dead and smaller than the other scorpions that were being sold, I decided to try just one.  For some reason, I had to break off the edge of the tail and throw it away, perhaps still afraid of poison.  The fried scorpion honestly tasted like french fry to my surprise.  The only thing that was missing at that point was ketchup.  However, not being the most adventurous person, I called it quits after the first scorpion, and my boyfriend happily gobbled the rest of the poor scorpions.

Ants in Your Dish

When I went to Cambodia last year in January, my god mother made a similar dish to this.  What do you see when you look at this picture?  Yep!  These are stir fried red ants with vegetables and beef!  Normally seen as unwanted pests in the kitchen, in Cambodia these insects are considered a delicacy!  I remember sitting at the kitchen table ready to dig into this dish with my spoon.  After scooping up a spoonful, I realized the brown spots were not pepper but cooked ants!  At first, I screamed and shouted that the vegetables weren't washed properly only to be answered with sounds of laughter.  My god mother explained to me that these ants are considered "clean" insects since they live on the trees and good enough to eat.  I didn't know what her definition of "clean" meant because in my opinion, insects are just bugs that aren't supposed to be eaten.  In addition to the stir fried red ants, you could see white little balls which were the ants larvae, also stir fried and ready to be eaten.

I decided to be a tough cookie and have at least one bite.  My philosophy is "you don't have to like it, but you should try it."  Honestly, the ants give the dish a kick just like black pepper.  It was as though I was eating black pepper stir fried beef.  My only thoughts were, "how did they collect all those ants?"  I imagined my god mother struggling as she was stir frying the dish, slapping at the ants that were crawling on her arms.  My solution?  Just use black pepper to avoid those crawling critters.  Ants and black pepper tastes the same anyways!