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Crazy Foods to Try - Part 1

VIETNAM | Sunday, 27 April 2014 | Views [633]

Raw Scorpions for the Grill

Raw Scorpions for the Grill

I have seen a lit of crazy foods in my life - from Mutton Brain to Scorpion. At some point I promised myself that I would try most of it.

I will never eat dog or horse because I love them too much, and I will never ever set foot in a restaurant that serves snake, because I am horrified of them. I mean it, I freak out when I hear the word snake.

 

But I by now I have quite a decent list of 'unusal' foods (from a western european perspective) here is my most and least favorites

Scorpion - definately Nr.1 up to now. I had Scorpion in Hanoi, it was my seconf to last evening there and we were looking for a nice place to eat. Just minutes before we had watched a TV show on National Geographic about strange food in Vietnam and had been offered fresh dog tails at the market.  Fresh dog tail at the market - want some?More or less freaked out I did what I always do when I eat on the street - I follow my nose. At a corner we discovered a couple of stalls with different kinds of fresh meat, fish and vegetables. We took a basket and started selecting, this was when my travel companion poked me and pointed in the direction of a certain basket. It contained black scorpions. I never really paid attention in biology class so I have no clue whther they were dangerous or not. I know of this rule of thumb 'the smaller the more dangerous' and those seemed pretty small for my taste but my companion assured me that they were 'big' so we ordered one each.

I admit I had to drink 1 beer before I dared to try, but once I did I had the delicious meat of my life. It was almost nothing, most of the meat is in the tail, right behind the poisenous sting. One would also assume that it tastes like shrimp, but no. Scorpion has a very unique taste. The meat is tender and a little bit sweet. The tricky part is to shut off that nagging voice in your had that keeps telling you: 'this is a poisenous animal! stop eating ist! ge some chicken!', bite of a segment and suck the meat out.

Enjoy it with some fresh veggies and a cold beer while observing the hussle on the streets of Hanoi.

 

My least favorite was turtle. We were invited by a Chinese friend of mine to a Chinese restaurant that had opened recently (I know, this is so much of a cliché) in Yogyakarta. Actually I was looking forward to some pork, after 4 months of only beef and chicken. Our host ordered something and they brought us a soup. The broth was really good, but the meat was fatty and glibbery and just yuiks... Only later I found out it had been a turle, and I love turtles, especially when snorkeling. I was so sad and thank god they did not serve this poor creature in its own shell... I would have died.

 

Of course I will go on trying different kinds of food and who know, maybe I will find something better or worse one day ;)

Tags: food, hanoi, scorpion, street food

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