Gross And Strange Foods Around The World

GRASSHOPPERS

Actually they aren’t that bad. Once you get past the legs. They tickle your tongue and are a little crunchy.

I did not care for them that much but there must be someone who does, because in Oaxaca, Mexico, they have three foot high buckets full of them, with women in the back of the stalls frying more.

For those of you who have tried grasshoppers, you know you won’t eat another in your life. For those of you who have not, just go out into your back yard, catch some, squish the guts out, fry them, add chile and lime, and eat up! Who knows? You might like them! I only got one down with a straight face. I was going to bring them back to the states with me to show my friends that I had really eaten them, but they got picked up at the border. They still don’t believe me.

TERMITES

Termites are good. They taste like mint and they have the crunch of a carrot. Hannah and I eat them a lot, if we find them.

The first place we had them is in Belize where I got bit by an ant that was huge. But that’s another story for another time.

Termites live in wood, mostly. They infest trees and they build huge nests out of mud with mud tubes that spiral down the trunk all the way to the ground and help to protect them. They also build mud cities on the ground. All we had to do, though, was to poke a hole in the mud tube and wait until a termite came out. Then we could pick it up, and toss it back. We had to make sure that we had killed completely because if we didn’t it could bite you on the way down.

When my family and I were in Tobacco Caye, Belize, I was playing volley ball with some men and women that lived there. Hannah was sitting up in a tree eating termites by the dozen when a little girl asked her what she was doing. Hannah told her and the girl climbed up to join her where she was lounging and Hannah showed her how to eat them. Then while Hannah was showing off she did not kill one completely and it bit her tongue and her throat on the way down.

I laughed as she told me later that day. She was not happy; I had not shown enough pity.  She said that she maintained what little “dignity” she had at that point and excused herself to leave the little girl to eat the termites and went to the hotel and made sure she was not to hurt.

CARP

One day while at my grandparents house in Canada my brothers set out on an expedition to catch a carp.

“The size of China!” as Ezra put it.

Nether my dad, my grandpa, or myself put and any real faith in them actually getting one.

My grandpa took his blood bait out of the freezer and put some in a ziplock bag and gave it to Ezra. Elisha asked if it tasted good. They filled a bag of snacks and got fishing poles, cane poles, oars, life jackets and took off.

My grandpa made a rowboat for us and I have taken day trips to go fishing or just to row all around the huge bay. One time I rowed straight across to deliver a dog towel a person had left behind. It was a long row and I got a cup of tea out of it. Not that I had wanted to get something out of it, I just wanted to say I had done it. I was pretty proud of myself because that was the longest full row I had ever completed. It was a couple of miles without a break.

Anyway, they took off and I went to the basement to do school, yes, even I do school, no matter how much I protest.

After about two hours I came up again and went to find grandpa.

“Are they back yet?” I asked.

“No, I highly doubt that they will get anything anyway. Once their snacks run out they will be back here in an instant,” my grandpa said.

At that moment the door flew open wildly and Ezra came storming in, tracking mud.

“Grandpa! Gabe! We got one! We did not get it with the poles but sneaked up on it while it was on the top of the water sleeping and netted it!” he yelled and then kicked off his shoes and ran up the stairs to tell Dad.

For a moment Grandpa and I just stood there.

“Grandmas going to kill him if she finds that mud on the ground when she gets back,” I observed.

“I’ll make him clean the mud up later.”

Then we looked at each other and went outside to see Elisha standing there with net in hand and a big carp in the bottom of it.

“Nice going boys!” grandpa had said, “Now go put it on a stringer and Gabe and I will clean it later, after I am done with work. Gabe? Can you help them?”

“Ok,” I said

We trekked down to the water and I put it on a stringer. It was heavy. When we put I back in it swam down to the length of its line

That evening Ezra and I went to the water and brought it back up the the fish to the shed where there was a trailer that we use to gut the fish on. Grandpa got his knives and we cleaned it.

When Grandma, Mom, and Hannah got back we had them cook it up and we all tried some. I almost spat it back out. By the second bite I was ready to get the boys to eat it all, so I did not have to, and to make them know not to ever get one again. Grandpa was with me on that one.

Instead we ate the bass Hannah and I had caught that week.

We liked the bass.

When we go there we like to get the bass but sometimes we get a garr or a pike. Those aren’t that bad. I don’t like the garr as much as the pike or bass though.

So the moral is: don’t eat grasshoppers, eat termites, don’t eat carp!