mafai fruit
Another fruit I’ve never seen anywhere else before. I’m not sure of the English name, but I believe in Thai it’s called มาไฟ [mafai]. Similar to longans in appearance and size, but very sour in taste. Not exactly my cup of tea.
Dancing shrimp salad
Well, here’s something interesting: dancing shrimp salad, or à¸à¸¹à¹‰à¸‡à¹€à¸•à¹‰à¸™ [goong dten]. You might think that’s just a fancy name for the dish until you realize it’s literal. Yes the shrimp are actually dancing! How so? Basically they are scooped right out of a fish tank where they are swimming around and plunked right into a pot. Then they are immediately mixed with a sauce mainly consisting of chili peppers. So yeah, they’re dancing alright. You probably would be too if you were suffocating while having chilies smeared all over your body. As you can see in the picture below, they are indeed trying to escape.
Anyway, I try not to think about their torture as I carefully pluck in my mouth. They’re very small, just babies, you eat the whole thing…head, tail, antennae, everything. Single or by the mouthful it doesn’t matter. It is quite tasty, although it’s probably mostly the sauce. The only thing to worry about is that you are essentially eating raw seafood from who knows how dirty water. Bon apetit!
Some escapees from the bowl - yeah, they flipped themselves out
Durian segment - the part you can eat
Of course I can’t be in Southeast Asia and forget to mention durian fruit. This is the first post on this blog about durian, but it is so ‘different’ that I’m sure there will be many more to follow. Pictured here is one inner segment of a durian. Basically, you eat the visible flesh and underneath are large, semi-soft seeds that you do not eat. It’s really hard to describe the taste. Here is a common quote from British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (via wikipedia):
The five cells are silky-white within, and are filled with a mass of firm, cream-coloured pulp, containing about three seeds each. This pulp is the edible part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. … as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour it is unsurpassed.
It’s generally quite difficult to find durian in the Western world. It is extremely fragrant (many would say in an unpleasant way) and spoils quickly. The smell is considered rancid enough to merit bans in hotels, taxis, and other public places throughout Southeast Asia. Even so, there are many advocates of the creamy texture and unique flavor of the fruit.
Because of all this, durian is also known as the king of fruits. The queen of fruits is the mangosteen and it is often recommended to eat these fruits together. It is believed the durian raises body temperature whereas the mangosteen cools it so they are eaten in conjunction to counteract the effects of each other. Part of this may be due to the huge calorie amount in the durian. In some places it is also considered dangerous to eat durian while drinking alcohol because of this.
What’s my opinion of the durian? Well, it took some getting used to but now I think it tastes great!
See wikipedia for more information.
Jabok nuts
Here is a photo of some nice-looking nuts. They are not bad, very similar to almond slivers, but sometimes difficult to slide the thin shell off. Of course there’s a story behind these nuts. I’m not sure of the English name for these, and only have a possible Thai name: จำบภ[jambok] or จบภ[jabok]. The nuts are not too common, but you will occasionally see a street or beach vendor hawking a bag of them. I doubt you would be able to find them at any supermarkets in Bangkok.
Anyway, the story goes like this. Apparently the nuts come in a very hard shell or may just be the seeds of a very hard fruit. Whatever it is, the casing is so hard that it would be much too tedious to get to the tiny edible inside by hand. So, in the olden days they just let nature take its course. To be very blunt, cows and buffalos would eat the whole fruit, then poop it out. Throughout the process of digestion and sitting in the dung some of the casing would get dissolved. Then, while weathering the elements, most of the gross stuff would get washed away. In the end wandering villagers would find the unshelled nuts scattered around the ground where they were easy to collect and snack on (after washing, I hope).
Fortunately the modern day tale is a bit more stomach friendly. Supposedly the shells are worked off by some sort of machine since the quantities you see the vendors selling would not be feasible with the rustic method. Since I do enjoy snacking on these, let me hope that is true.
My information here is just ‘through the grapevine,’ so if anyone can give the real Thai or English name, or any corrections, please leave a comment below!
Some massive artichokes
Now this vegetable here, the common artichike, may not seem so strange to most readers but I figured I’d give a change of perspective. Â This is one of those things that we ten to take as normal, but many Asians would look at this with curiousity and intrigue. Â A bit similar to cheese which, although many of us think of it is as one of the base products of our diet, there are a lot of Asians that look at it with disgust. Â Ewww…gross!
I love fresh artichokes, but they are on vegetable that are very hard to find in most of Asia. Â Harvested in only a few parts of the world (mostly Europe), it would be too hard to transport them over here. Â I guess I’ll just have to settle for the canned hearts, but that doesn’t give the whole effect of eating an artichoke.
Here’s some photos of quail eggs which may not be so strange to many of you, but are not all that common in America. They are quite ubiquitous around Thailand and are usually served hard boiled or fried. They even have special frying pans for the little eggs so the vendors can crack out 7 or more at a time. As you may have guessed they taste quit similar to your normal chicken egg, but in tiny bite-sized pieces that include both yolk and white.
By the way, the topping of choice for any kind of egg in Thailand seems to be soy sauce. It’s actually very good as it adds the saltiness we tend to like with a bit more of the soy flavor. All in all, it adds up to a tasty combination.
Fried quail eggs
Deshelling a hard boiled quail egg
A bag of hard boiled quail eggs
Two scorpions compared to a five baht coin.
This is certainly not the first odd food I’ve tried in Thailand, but definitely one of the strangest. I mean, if you just had to guess off the top of your head, would you ever suspect that scorpions were edible? Well it turns out they are.
I’m not sure exactly how they’re cooked. Possibly a quick drop in the deep fryer is all it takes. When you sit down to eat one of these things, first off you need take off the claws and discard because they are too hard. Second, you need to get rid of the tail since it’s not only hard, but sharp enough to jab your mouth pretty good as well. What your left with is a hard, not so tasty scorpion body left to chomp on. Not very impressive to me in any aspects except the sheer strangeness of it.
Closeup of two edible scorpions.
Flying insect
You can’t get enough bugs in Thailand, that’s for sure. These choice bits were purchased during a brief stay in Udon Thani, far up in the Northeast of Thailand. The first three photos are small crickets and are called jing riid [จิ้งหรีดทà¸à¸”]. After that we have a bag of silk worm larva (dakdae [ดัà¸à¹à¸”้]). Not only are they used for making silk, but they are a countryside snack as well. Nice, plump, and juicy.
Lastly, we have the infamous maengda [à¹à¸¡à¸¥à¸‡à¸”าทà¸à¸”], known as a water cockroach although it is nothing like dirty city cockroaches. Thais hate city cockroaches just as much as most people and they would never think of eating them. Maengda are caught nearby bodies of water in the countryside. A light (I think blacklight) is placed in the air with buckets underneath. The maengda are attracted to the light but then get disoriented when they get too close and then fall in the buckets or on the ground where they are quickly scooped up.
To eat a maengda you break off the legs (sucking the juice out is optional) and discard.  Then you bite off the body and discard the head while enjoying the pleasant taste.  Actually, I don’t think the taste is very pleasant, but Thais say the bugs have a fruity aroma and I can definitely agree with this.  In fact, maengda is even used as an ingredient in some dishes because of this.  Most notably is nam prik maengda [น้ำพริà¸à¹à¸¡à¸¥à¸‡à¸”า], where they take a maengda and cruash it up with chilis, garlic, fish sauce and a couple other items to create a chili sauce with a distinct flavor.  You can then use this sauce for dipping vegetables.
These are just a few of the different insects available in Thailand. Â In the future I’m sure I’ll cover some more. All of these insects can be boiled or fried; these ones were fried.
Cricket closeup
Bag fulla crickets (จิ้งหรีด)
Silk worm larva
The infamous maeng daa
Red ant nest
If anyone’s been wondering where they get those ant eggs that are used in several Isaan foods, then here you go. This photo is actually from Laos, but these ants are very common all over Southeast Asia. As you can see the red ants live in trees and kind of stick a few leaves together to make their home. You definitely do not want to get caught standing under one of these since the ground is usually swarming with the ants as well. And they bite a lot which can be pretty painful when there’s a dozen of them going at you. Many times I’ve been out on the golf course trying to hit my ball from in the trees only to come running out with red ants attacking me (and my ball in an even worse lie if I managed to hit it). It’s amazing that when people try to collect the nests they just knock them out of the tree with a stick. Brave souls, since they ants are not pleasant when they’re going ballistic.
Laos snack
I just had to snap a photo of this snack from a roadside stand in Laos. It was somewhere between Luang Prabong and Vang Vien, to be specific. I’m not exactly sure what part of this is edible, but there they were, a couple trays full of them, all nicely bundled up. Unfortunately the photo is a bit blurry as I was trying not to attract attention and the glass case they were sitting in could certainly use a cleaning. In case you can’t tell, what we have is a chicken head (with neck), some bigger chicken bones, and chicken feet all wrapped together with chicken tendons. That’s some prime chicken right there. This is one strange food that I was not even slightly interested in trying.
Hi, I'm Joe, your typical cyber traveler and world tourist currently based in Thailand. This blog is about:
