Who would ever eat THAT!!

Laos land of million elephants, has a lot of traditional economy left to it. In the countryside and deeper in the jungle people will hunt for their food. What would you think is on the menu? Wild deer, birds, fish, and wild pigs? They actually have a much greater menu. Let’s say it includes everything that craws and is not poisonous! Except for mosquitoes, flies, and cockroaches. Now your imagination should be running. Well I grew up in this country. I love Laos. I have a lot of memories from Laos.

My first interesting meal was at a friend’s house. I was only 5 at the time and liked simple food such as fried egg with rice. In Laos a special omelet includes red ant eggs. They are very sour and pop in your mouth.

When I went for a visit to Thailand I announced that I wanted to eat red ant eggs. The nice Thai aunts I had were excited to see a small blond girl desire such a weird snack that they went to work and tried to find some for me.

This was the beginning of my adventures with numerous bugs which I encountered with in Laos. Only they all ended up as my snack. Red, black, white, brown and green, soft and crunchy, cute and scary! My Lao friends were proud of me.

In Laos people like to smash the gall of a fish before they cook the fish to make it taste bitter. They also like their meat raw better than cooked. Many weir food cultures may amaze you when you visit Laos.

Our family went out to eat at a restaurant with a Belgium couple one night, a doctor and a child physiologist. They wanted to take us to a special Laos restaurant. The restaurant was specialized in goat meat. We all knew we liked goat meat. No one knew what it was cooked in. Finally the food was in front of us. There was a dip also at the side of the dish. The dip was made from the dung which was still in process and had been taken out of the intestine. I tried it. It was bitter. When we started eating the meat we realized it was cooked in the same dung as the dip was made of. In the Old Testament God forbid the Jews to eat kid which was boiled in its mothers milk, we were not braking the old law we were eating kid boiled in it’s mothers dung!!!!

This might seem wild, but the next thing I did might be worse for others. I learned to eat a cicada alive! I did not kill the poor thing before I ate it. I later learned that this was a tastier way of eating the bug. You may know the unmistakable sound of the cicadas singing. Think of it making this similar to an electric guitar sound just before and while you bite into the bug.

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