The Sultry Silk Road to Bracing Ant Bites

Most people out there have had nightmares or seen or heard horror stories about creepy crawly critters so it is fairly understandable that many would find the prospect of putting these petite partitioned pests into their protected pie holes. Of course, your environment plays a big part in your tolerance for unique ingredients. If you’re in Seattle, you’ve got Starbucks. If you live by the sea, you’ve got seafood. If you’re in the forests of South East Asia, you’ve seen silk worms and red ants.

Both dishes were brought down to Bangkok from North East Thailand. These miniature morsels have been lightly seasoned and fried. The silk worms are, as the name suggests, the cute chubby worms that spin cocoons of pure silk which are processed to make your silky soft shirts, skirts and ties. They also make a dainty delectable dinner. The fat and soft contents are encased in a thin crisp capsule that bursts with a lighter force than that of salmon caviar. The flavour is very comparable to prawn, or more specifically prawn heads. They have a savoury sweet shellfish umami swirled in with the musty hums of tiny dried shrimp. I would even describe their texture as akin to a dried shrimp that has been soaked or rehydrated in a cooking process.

These red ants have been cooked, dressed and tossed into a simple Thai style salad. Their tough exteriors have been softened but still provide texture when you bite through their soft bellies, much like a soft boiled pea. The delicate body structures have taken on a lot of the flavours of the salad dressing which is rich with the fragrant flavours of South East Asia. The ants themselves were sweet, salty and savoury with the freshness of lemongrass and the herbal hum of aniseed and nutmeg. You may have to overcome the visual challenge of placing a bug you would usually beat with a baseball bat between your teeth and swallowing but I assure you, the flavour experience is not something to be feared. The textures on your tongue and between your teeth are very much like eating peas, beans or pulses and the flavours provide a welcome wake-up call, interesting but not offensive, to your palette.