When in Cambodia... Eat Crickets!!

Food. I think trying out the local foods is one of the best ways to really immerse yourself in the culture of a place, really understand the people, and to better get a feel for a place. Food, I have noticed, especially in SE Asia seems to be the heart of a culture. It reflects many things about the people. For example Nepal, the food was very basic: dal bhat (lentils and rice) and sometimes curry. Food in Cambodia is adventurous, exotic, fun! I am having a ball trying all sorts of local foods at the markets and food stalls. Trying local foods and eating the way the locals do is essential for a real Cambodian experience. I have vowed off restaurants because there is just so much good food at the stalls, vendors and markets!

Well, I had heard rumors of fried tarantulas being a Cambodian delicacy. I decided I needed to try some. It is my mission to try as many local things as I can in every country I go to, no matter how weird or strange they seem. It just adds to the fun of everything and the overall experience. So, I told my moto driver yesterday that if he saw a stall with fried tarantula to stop and we could test some. Coming back from the day I spotted an interesting looking food stall on the side of the street and asked him to stop. And man-oh-man, you could say this stall was intersting. I started by inspecting what was in all the bowls. Here are the things this stall sold:
-Fried crickets
-Fried prawns
-Fried maggots
-Fried grubs
-Fried (HUGE) cockroaches
-Fried frogs (whole, 4 on a skewer)
-Fried storks
-Fried bats
-Fried black beetles
-Fried snakes (3 different varieties of snakes. all were curled up and tied together with string)
-Fried miscellaneous large bug that I could not identify
-Fried sparrows (whole, head, beak, wings, feet and all.)
Wow. As you can see the Cambodians seem to like their bugs, birds and snakes fried. They unfortunately did not have fried tarantula or other variety of spider. The woman who ran the stall said it was not spider season. Oh well. All these bugs were giving me the shivers as it was. I decided to try a cricket to start out with. These aren't your typical cricket. These crickets are massive!! My moto driver showed me how to eat a dricket. You peel off the wings and the big lets, then pop off the head and eat the whole thing. The stall owner watched me through the whole process, chuckling. After I felt I had sufficently peeled off all the wings and legs, I threw it in my mouth. Hmmm.... Not bad!! It tasted a bit chickenish. Very crunchy and salty. Pretty good actually! I was not sure what to try next. Though the 5 inch long fried roaches looked inviting, I decided to leave those for another day. My driver bought us each a fried sparrow. He showed me how to eat this, ripping off the legs and sucking off the meat. the pull off the wings and eat the innards. Then the head. Beak if you wish. The sparrow was alright. Not much meat on the little thing, and a bit strange to eat. The bones are so fine as well, and I got a few baby sparrow bones stuck in my teeth. The crickets and sparrows were acutally pretty good! I'm leaving cockroach and grubs for another day. And I'm still in search of a tarantula.