When you take a tour in Bangkok, Thailand, you are likely to find yourself going to one of the many night markets available. The tour we booked took us to Jodd Fairs which certainly was designed for tourists in mind, but since we were tourists, we took a nice walk around the crowded market to see all the wares and foods that were being sold.
This time, we certainly had to go through our rites of passage being tourist and try our hand at eating insects and durian – that smelly fruit that is illegal to take aboard airplanes. It didn’t take long to find many stalls selling both of these items. It was just a matter of which ones you wanted to try.
As for trying the roasted insects, I kind of liken it to eating roasted seeds or better yet, roasted popcorn. After the insects were roasted, I ended up eating lots of air, especially the caterpillars and big fat larva of insects that they had. Lots of air and the flavor was mostly of the spices they roasted them in. Not much flavor on their own. The trouble comes when you eat the crickets and grasshoppers which have the legs and other parts of the shell that tend to get stuck in your teeth and make it tougher to swallow. If you are finding it tough to swallow the idea of eating insects, well there’s not much too it. Once you get by the ugh factor, there’s no much disgustingness with the flavor itself.
As for the durian, my mother-in-law loves the stuff, and I didn’t mind the hard candies they brought back that were durian flavored from her previous Thailand trip. The durian cakes we tried were much more in line with the candies that were brought back as there was no strong odor that most people find off-putting. And if you enjoy the flavor of durian, then the durian filled pastries are not a bad way to go. Personally, I don’t enjoy the flavor of durian that much, so these pastries weren’t my cup of tea. With so many other types of great tasting tropical fruits that we tried later, the durian didn’t make my list of favorite fruits. And, yes, I did try the fresh version of durian later, stay tuned!
Very interesting topic, thanks for posting.