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OK, so it's part of travel.. sampling the local cuisine... and occasionally you discover some amazing things... like the Chirimoya, a fruit which I first experienced in Panama. Tough, green, knobby skin and bizarre white, soft fleshy insides that peel off in sections like perfectly cooked fish... and oh so yummy.And then other times, you have to just grit your teeth and bare it...
Such was the case in Colombia when I ate ants for the first time. This post ended up as a long story, which you can peruse if you have the urge. But the executive summary for this thread: What is the strangest thing you have ever eaten?
So back to those ants… No, I wasn't starving in the jungle... No, I hadn't lost a bet. I bought them at an ant stand... kind of like those guys selling caramel-coated nuts on the streets in NYC. This guy had a sign with a great big, frighteningly ant on it. Like something out of a horror movie, with huge pinchers and sinister looking humanesque eyes. The vendor explained to us that they are a delicacy in Colombia, and that it was high ant season at the moment (imagine our luck). So we bought a "sleeve" of ants (a long, thing plastic bag bag stuffed with the little buggers) for the absurd price of $5. No it wasn't the tourist price. we waited until a couple locals bought them to make sure that they were charged the same thing (then again, those could have been plants... family members of the vendor who get a cut of the action to pose as hungy, ant-loving Colombians. Jesus. Traveler paranoia. I need help.). We took them to a bar and ordered a couple beers, an important safety measure. I reached into the bag and extracted the first ant - a real monster... some kind of chernobyl ant or something. My wife was ready with the camera (you gotta have these things on film, or nobody believes you) and our travel buddy, Brian, was looking on with a grin. Conversation at the table of Colombians next to us seemed to have died down. I glanced over there, and they all quickly looked away. Returning to my contemplation of the mega-ant, I noticed that he had lost a leg and one antenna in the roasting process. “Poor little fella,” I thought, as an image of ants crawling around in an oven, slowly roasting flashed through my head. “Come on… it’s just an ant. Be a man!” My “friend” Brian. Aren’t I little old for peer pressure? But finally I popped him in and started to chew. I crunched down on his little exo-skeleton. The texture was something like that of overcooked popcorn, and as I chewed, I was torn between the desire to swallow it quickly and get this over with on the one hand, and a ridiculous image of ants crawling around in my stomach on the other hand (as if my stomach juices would somehow magically re-animate this ant so that he could crawl back up my throat). So I kept chewing, but even with this monster ant, there isn’t much to ants. And before I had a chance to swallow, he just seemed to disappear. A most unsatisfactory feeling. And it was only then that I processed the taste. Really, it wasn’t so bad. Not really much taste at all, to tell you the truth. But there was this strange kind of lurking after-taste. It wasn’t so horrible… certainly I had tasted worse… but I couldn’t get over the fact that this was the taste of ants! Why the heck am I eating ants?
“So?” I paused for a moment, and then gave a little grunt, accompanied by that instinctive “yuck” face that consists of wrinkling up your nose, squinting your eyes, and simultaneously pulling down and rolling over your lower lip while sinking your chin down into your neck and shrugging your shoulders. I grabbed for my beer and started drinking to wash out the taste. This was when the table of Colombians next to us started laughing. They were young kids (meaning about 20 years old… which now that I think of it, makes me feel pretty old that I call 20-year-olds kids), and when we offered them some ants, they laughed at us. Apparently the ants are for tourists and the older generation. The kids of today have seen too much MTV and Hollywood movies. Forget the traditions… they don’t want to be seen as third-world ant-eaters. Or maybe I am romanticizing and reading too much into it. Maybe they just don’t like having ant legs stuck between their teeth. I have to say I agree with them on that one.
i travel, therefore i am.
Huss
tript member
...I ate all sorts of stuff. Warthog, wild board, all sorts of venison family. Had some Zebra (but not Giraffe thank god!).
But guess what was surprisingly good? Grubs. Yup. Ok, so they were fried and had a little hot sauce on the side, but even plain, I'll be honest, I popped several into my mouth. Crunchy on the outside. Soft and warm inside.
Go figure.
Why do I....keep launching new websites?
Huss
tript member
I also drank some homemade brew of an indigenous tribe in western Zimbabwe (what a shame about what's happenned to my favorite country in Africa). I can't believe I took a sip - stupid when I look back on it - but this stuff was homebrewed beer. You could certainly taste the beer essence, but I think it was fermented with saliva IIRC. This tribe was matriarcal and somehow connected to the Rastafarians in the carribean. I never quite figured it out but it was quite a day. My girlfriend wasn't too happy with me at the time.
I'm still alive.
Why do I....keep launching new websites?
Huss
tript member
Oh - and Guinea Pig in Peru. YUCK.
Why do I....keep launching new websites?
YankHibee
tript member
I've eaten ants several times. I worked at a camp in NM where we would teach a few survival skills, and the ever present ants were edible--they tasted mostly like citrus. What I was taught (and therefore passed on) was the big flat-black ones were edible, but the glossy ones weren't, so I attest only to flat black ants in northern NM.
I've had most of the British Isles foods from black pudding to deep fried pizza and haggis. None really seemed weird though.
Lutefisk(sp?). Not bad.
My girlfriend's family supposedly has a bowl of bird's nest soup with my name on it--I'll let ya know.
Bonnie Lass
tript member
I've only had black ants once, and only by accident as they were in and on my sweet tea glass. And yes, they have an unusual citrus flavor. Which actually went quite well with my tea.
I think the most bizarre things I've had are all regional (Deep South) fare:
- Pickled pigs feet
- hog brains mixed with grits
-Wild boar/deer/quail/dove
- Salt fish (salt-cured mullet)
- Gator, fried and on a stick
- rattlesnake, fried
-Chitlins/chitterlings (pig intestines)
- Chicken gizzards
I think there's more (!) but y'all get the point. It's funny, but I think a lifetime in the South has prepared me for virtually any culinary challenge.
(And I thought guinea pigs were supposed to taste a lot like pork? I take it that's a no, Huss?)
Mike
tript member
Guinea Pigs don't taste like much of anything on their own. They require a good sauce... And they are still pretty unpleasant to eat, because let's face it... they are guinea pigs for god's sake. There isn't much meat on there, and what there is tends to be rather on the tough, rubbery side.
Gator, on the other hand, i found surprisingly delicious. It was actually cayman, in the Amazon, but I assume all scaly, prehistoric lizard taste generally similar. Very tender, white meat... great roasted over an open fire in the jungle. mmmm mmmm
i travel, therefore i am.