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Cultural Delicacies: Tarantula

by Brenda Yun (RSS feed) on Dec 12th 2008 at 9:00AM

When opportunity knocks, you have to take it. That's what happened when I was standing in the shade of a bus stop on my way from Laos to Cambodia two years ago. Stretching my limbs, I looked over my shoulder, and a Khmer lady with a sun hat had a huge plate of what appeared to be big, black, fried spiders for sale to eat.

"What is that?" I asked the lady.

"Tarantula," she said in nearly perfect English.

I had heard of Cambodian people eating insects like grasshoppers and ants before, but never had I encountered a delicacy like this one. Nor do I understand how the lady came across so many tarantulas (at least 100! do they raise them in cages?) and thought to kill and fry each and every one of them. Regardless, my "Survivor: Gross Foods" mode kicked into high gear, I purchased a fried spider and crunched it down.

Gallery: "Gross" Food

Fried tarantula tastes just like a crispy potato chip. There's nothing spidery about it. In fact, it's not just a delicacy in Cambodia. According to Wikipedia, tribes deep in the Amazons of South America eat them too. I have seen a BBC program on the preparation of fried tarantula, and it appears they can be undercooked and you have to removed their teeth sometimes. Aside from this, though, eating fried tarantula is a harmless and unique cultural experience! I hope you have a chance in your lifetime to try it!

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Learning, Food and Drink, Stories, Asia, South America, Cambodia, Travel Health

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Willy Dec 12th 2008 11:04AM

I ate roasted caterpillars in Zambia. They were overcooked and tasted just like eating a plateful of burnt toast crumbles. Not gross -- but not appealing, really.

Kim@Galavanting Dec 12th 2008 11:16AM

Wow, props to you! I can only hope to one day crunch down a fried tarantula...

arex Dec 12th 2008 11:18AM

From one of those PBS shows of the Amazon, I heard tarantulas taste a lot like crab meat. One day...

Alas, the most unusual stuff I've eaten are the likes of snake and cow unmentionables. Dare me to eat something and I just might--less a few things from Andrew Zimmern's show.