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How To Eat Tarantulas & Other Bugs In Cambodia

October 9, 2014 by The Runaway Guide Leave a Comment

cricket-cambodiaAfter bumping around like jumping beans over unpaved roads for the past 4 hours, the bus finally stopped. Starving, I jumped out and walked towards the rest stop food court. As I side stepped a large metal bowel, something inside it caught my eye. Then I saw them. My legs immediately leapt backwards. There, inside, were at least 30 live Tarantulas!

My mouth agape, I looked towards the shop keeper on my right. She smiled and then pointed to her hundred strong army of fried tarantulas piled on the table.

“You want?” I was speechless.

I carefully made my way around the bowl of confined spiders and over to her food stall to get a closer look. She didn’t just have Tarantulas. She also had fried baby birds, crickets, grasshoppers, cockroaches, beetles, and a couple other bugs I had never seen.

I continued to stare at the immense insect smorgasbord before me when all of a sudden some guy tore into a Tarantula and offered me the other half.

“Hahhhhahhahaha, hah, haha, haaaah…..Really? You want me to eat this? Do you really eat this?”

“Yea I do. It’s very good. We are in a province famous for its fried spiders,” he proclaimed with pride.

“Ok, you go first then,” I taunted, hoping that he wouldn’t actually go through with it. But sure enough he put it to his teeth and chomped that fried arachnid like a Korean digs into doggy soup.

So began the insect smorgasbord.

From tarantulas and cockroaches to crickets!

From tarantulas and cockroaches to crickets!

Step One: Introduce Yourself To The Spider

“Hey spider, I’m going to eat you,” I muttered quietly. Somehow saying this helped me commit. First I ripped off the leg, put it to my teeth, and gave it a little nibble. My tongue slowly pressed up against the limb. To my surprise it was sweet and spicy.

deep-fried-spiders-cambodia

Posh looking girl sampling a tarantula before buying.

Step Two: Play For Keeps

So I decided to tuck into it. Crunch, crack, the insides oozed out over my tongue. My mouth filled with the taste of iron, dirt and crunchy turd. I chewed faster and faster until I swallowed that big bug like I was about to win 50,000 dollars on Fear Factor.

Jumbo crickets anyone?

Jumbo crickets anyone?

Step Three: Wash That Bug Down

I ran over to the drink cooler, pulled out a coke and downed it. But still the taste lingered. I plucked out an iced green tea and sipped ferociously. Again, the taste remained. It wasn’t until later that night that I was able to wash this deep and twangy taste from my mouth.

bowl of live tarantulas

Live tarantula’s waiting to be fried.

So why did I do it?

This was my chance to delve into Cambodian culture and push my palate, and I couldn’t say no. It was an experience, and I think that’s what travel and life is all about.

Even if it’s a fried up giant spider that’s been sitting out in the sun for way too long, sometimes you just gotta say yes and take a bite. Would I do it again? Probably not. The cockroach was tastier than that spider but not tasty enough that I’ll be paying 35 cents to put it on my hamburger any day soon.

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Who Is The Runaway Guide?

When I was 16 I ran away from home and traveled the world with nothing but the clothes on my back. Over 10 years later and I'm still "on the run," surviving in style, thriving off adventure, searching for that elusive road to enlightenment, and cultivating the life of travel that I want to live. More...






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