You Ate What????

As my player card sits I stand over most people at over 6'3" but weigh in at just 180 lbs (Or 190 cm and 82 kg). Don't ask me to help in a fight cause this skinny wuss will run in the opposite direction. Now looking at me one might think I don't eat a whole lot or persist to be one of the pickiest eaters around. Neither of which are true, more so the latter. In my short life of 24 years on planet earth I have yet to come across a certain food that I hate, seriously.  Sure there are some that I'm not super thrilled with but if you put it on a plate in front of me chances are I'll eat it. These eating habits have suited me well so far. I have gotten the opportunity to try some pretty outlandish food and I wanted to elaborate on a few so far.

What I love about traveling from a western to eastern culture is its not hard to find something "different" to eat. One of my favorite things to do is walk into a convenient store or street vendor and pick something completely off the wall just to give it shot. Now some of these items are so mundane to the average local I get weird looks when I take pictures of said edible (I'm obsessed with taking pictures of my food) because to me it's a first. Take this gem for example.

This tasty treat was a seaweed sandwich with what tasted like a mayonnaise based sauce blended in. Can't find these in North Seattle. Sure this isn't the craziest thing one could eat but it's different. It had to be given a shot and the results didn't disappoint. These things won't be giving Subway a run for its money or anything but by the end of my trip I could see myself being a serious seaweed sandwich connoisseur.

This next edible is a tad more "outlandish" as the pictures below show me munching down on some deep-fried silkworms. MMMmmmm. Honestly once you popped those little guys in your mouth it was just a rush of grease and salt down the throat. Not too bad.

These silkworms were actually given out as samples at a silk factory outside of Dalat, Vietnam where they produce mass amounts of silk to be made into ties, dresses, shirts, etc. You think your life sucks? Think of a silkworm! Imagine if someone could iterate the process of how their life was going to go "Alright, once you are a full grown larva we are going to need you to produce a beautiful silk cocoon. Once you have finished binding your cocoon we are going to unwind you from it to then make mass profit. We will then release you into a massive bucket with hundreds of other homeless silkworms where you will eventually be deep fried and salted to be handed out to tourists as free samples". I now wake up thankful I'm not a silkworm. 

Silkworms still with their silk cocoons pictured below.

"Oh you have not had *fill in the blank with meat miscellaneous* before? It tastes just like chicken". I feel like I hear that every time trying a new poultry item. Well in this case IT WAS TRUE. I swear on my first hamsters grave. It was Crocodile. Maybe it could have been the way it was prepared I'm not too sure. In Cambodia their signature dish is called amok and one night out for dinner about a month ago I gave crocodile amok a try. Give it a look.

The idea behind amok is that of a coconut milk based sauce with sautéed veggies and a particular meat or seafood (I tired mutable kinds of amok). If it was not for the surprising texture of the crocodile I would have ran back to the kitchen and called BS on this guys "crocodile amok" because it honestly tasted like chicken. But taste is only part of the food sampling check list. I would have to say it was top 2 favorite meals in Cambodia.

This next and final dish is one for the books.

One evening in Siem Reap, Cambodia I was headed back to my guesthouse and up to my room when the owner and his best friend caught me just before the stairs and invited me to sit down for dinner with them, without question I sat down. The fact I had just come back from dinner held no weight, after all, the best friend said the owner had just made soup from today's "fishing" trip. I thought, "Oh great, I would love some fresh Cambodian fish, check that one off the list". Stupid Woody. When the owner said he went fishing what he really meant to say was "I went to the river and killed anything that moved excluding fish". Our soup du jour was rice soup with eel, frog, snake and snake eggs. Caught me a tad off guard when he said it but I was so game to give it a try. They were all delightful in their own right. The eel, snake and frog sit in the picture below from left to right.   

Here is the snake egg. Veins and all.

The eel tasted similar to what I've had before at sushi restaurants, the frog (leg) had the texture of chicken with a more "outdoorsy" taste to it, the snake tasted like snake (go figure) and the eggs had little flavor with the texture of a crayola crayon. None of them were completely offsetting but I would say the soup broth was my least favorite part. Just a whole of wilderness in one broth. Aside from the tiny snake bones I just finished pulling out of my teeth a few days ago I enjoyed it.

The aftermath of bones and leftovers

With plenty of time to go I'm really hoping to add to my list of "You ate what????" and add it here. So we can consider this PART ONE.