Let's Talk About Bugs Baby!

Street vedor selling dried seafoods, and bundeggi.

It comes as no surprise, being half-way around the world; you would experience new, different, and sometimes downright disgusting foods. I am happy to say that I've tried most of these tasty delicacies and some of the nastiest things ever thought up to eat. But, I think that trying each and every one of these is important in understanding the culture!

In Thailand it was the bottle of rice vodka mixed with scorpion and poisonous centipedes. While here, I'm experiencing blood soup, bundeggi, pig spine soup, blood noodle rolls, and let's not forget all the seafood with the heads on!! I'm sure there are a lot more that I have tasted but just didn't realize what it was. The only gross thing I didn't eat were the deep-fried chicken feet. Because what can you really get out of chewing chicken bones besides certain death, if I was a dog anyways?!

So, let's begin with the blood soup. The soup is served boiling hot in a special bowl that acts as an oven. There are various vegetables in it, depending on season, and some pork. There are also chunks of coagulated blood. Now, I'm not brave enough to dig right into the coagulated blood because of a bad experience in Thailand, but I've tasted it already. The soup broth is actually very delicious. Some of the blood melts into the broth with the water and other seasonings. It's a spicy smooth taste. I highly recommend it to everyone. Plus you'll get a healthy serving of iron with it! ;-)

Bundeggi

Second, is Korea's most famous bug dish, bundeggi (shown left). It's actually a silkworm larva. They are in some sort of liquid. I don't know if it's a little bit of preserves and water to keep them from quickly going bad or what. But what I do know is that the smell is rancid. The streets of downtown are rank with the smell because there are one or two stands that sell these. They are also complementary when you go to a soju shack. I've personally tried bundeggi twice. The first time I was "slightly" inebriated at an early time of 7:30am (still hadn't been home). After the initial taste I thought it was a bland, wet cardboard taste. It wasn't delicious but wasn't horrible either. The second time I tasted it was at a soju room before any drinks were consumed. So, I was the picture of perfect sobriety. I slowly lowered the soft-bodied life form into my mouth and chewed. After a few gags I managed to get it down the pipe. Then I grabbed the nearest soju bottle to try to burn away the nastiest taste ever! It was like a rancid vomit chunk. I can't even describe the taste without gagging! However, some people, mostly Koreans, seem to enjoy this delicacy so if you're into weird food I suggest you try it.

The third interesting food I've had here is pig spine soup. I didn't realize what it was until yesterday and I had been eating it for eight months. But, it's basically just a soup with ham on the bone in it. The bone just happens to be a spine. It's a highly recommendable soup especially if you like ham. I, however, don't like ham very much so I prefer the blood soup.

Seafood stand

The next one was a surprise attack on my taste buds with the blood noodle roll. I thought it was some sort of sausage with those clear noodles in it. One of my Korean friends told me he loved them and for me to try it. So, being me I happily grabbed it and stuffed the whole thing in my mouth. Man, does it suck to be trusting or what?! It was like a punch in the face! It was Thailand all over again! The coagulated blood not watered down by spices or soup broth assaulted my taste buds. Even the texture of the blood caused my stomach to revolt! I actually had to spit it out in the middle of the restaurant for fear of loosing my stomach! I then burned the taste out of my mouth with more soju! I don't recommend this food to anyone unless you are of the night breed and are used to feasting on blood!

The last of my questionable food experiences are the seafoods with the heads still on. All the fish are cooked with their heads and scales still on! Even the shrimp aren't undressed! They look like they could get up and walk right off your plate. I guess I'm not a fan of eating an animal that still looks like an animal. It's like cooking a chicken with the feathers still on! So, I don't actually eat any of these because I don't like seafood. However, I have eaten the dried anchovies that they serve at the local hof's. But I do tear off their heads before dipping them in the red chili sauce. They're actually quite tasty. They kind of taste like salmon jerky, which I learned to like because of my Scandinavian heritage.

Seaweed, anchovies, and cheese.

Some other various other foods have included squid/octopus beaks, octopus jerky, deep fried cuddle fish, octopus pancake and soup, and some various other versions of octopus. I have also had so many versions of seaweed. It's everywhere! Kimbap, soup, bibimbap, rice, and just plain seaweed with soy sauce dippings.

I'm sure that I've consumed a lot more "disgusting" things, according to our standards, but I just didn't know it. However, most of them aren't bad at all and I think that we should try it before condemning it. Before I leave Korea there are two more things that I really want to try, which are dog and a live octopus! It's really nice to try some of these new things that are just an every day dish to people over here. It's like a new adventure in every bite!