Koreans eat some pretty strange things. Dog-meat, probably the best-known, can still be obtained although it is restricted to special restaurants, is rather expensive and is consequently unlikely to show up randomly in your bulgogi. Some of the snack foods seem to freak the foreigners out even more.

Koreans tend to order and offer lots of side-foods (anju) to nibble on when people are drinking. One of the most popular with my friends is the salty-fried-eggs served at the Hut – our usual Friday-night dongdongju spot. A few weeks back when we were there one of the Koreans in the group ordered chicken’s feet. Having grown up in SA, I am familiar with ‘walkie-talkies‘ and various other unusual (from a Western perspective) animal bits. I’ve even (willingly!) eaten tripe. So I was less thrown than the others and, to be honest, quite enjoyed giggling quietly in the corner as I watched their reactions. I certainly wasn’t jumping to sample it, though.

I was more adventurous last week, when the anju (I think ordered by one of our group) included bugs. When I think of edible bugs, my mind immediately meanders calmly over to mopane worms and all the things you can do with them. I once saw a menu (in Obs – go figure) advertising a starter of feta-stuffed mopani worms.

In Korea they eat silkworms. Or more accurately silkworm pupae. The silkworm pupae are steamed or boiled and then served on a plate. I tried one. It actually wasn’t too bad. It’s difficult to separate taste from texture. I’d describe them as crunchy and salty and juicy. The only problem with them (assuming you can get your head around eating bugs) is that they have a sort of gritty, cement-dust-like aftertaste which isn’t all that pleasant. Also, they’re a mission to pick up if you’re as inept with chopsticks as I still am.

But I tasted them and they weren’t too bad and I didn’t think anything more of it. Until last night. I had just been thinking about Beondegi wondering if they’d make an appearance this Friday night – not that I’m desperate for them; I was just wondering – and I was in the mart (mini-supermarket), when there, between the tinned sweetcorn and the ubiquitous Spam, were tins of silkworms. I couldn’t believe my eyes. One thing to serve bugs with dongdongju and soju in a Korean restaurant/bar, but another thing entirely to sell them, tinned,  in the supermarket. At which point I got the giggles – can’t you just picture it, ‘Honey, I’m just popping down to the mart for a can of silkworms’?

Some days I feel like Korea is a little colony of the USA and then along come the canned silkworms and I feel like I’m on a different planet.