Incredible Edibles: Gutbusters: Food Facts From Around The World
Fancy an alternative to a chicken drumstick?
Webs, the fleshy parts of duck feet, are really popular in places like China where they’ve been eating webs for centuries, most notable in a dish called ‘Pearl in the Palm’.
In this delicacy duck feet are boiled up, the bones removed and then topped with mashed garlic and a boiled pigeon egg. The webs apparently taste a bit like chewy streaky bacon. Yum.
Snack attack
Burmese bamboo bugs are high in protein and low in fat and are very popular in South East Asia. I think they’re an ideal snack alternative to peanuts or crisps or you can mix them in a salad as they taste juicy and sweet and a lot like Jerusalem artichoke.
Bored of beef?
Try the Ostrich. Not only can you eat ostrich like a burger, you can eat the egg too which would go quite a way considering the Ostrich lays the largest egg on the planet.
Want to try a new omelette filling?
Bored of cheese and ham? Why not try something different. Weaver ants, mostly eaten in Thailand, Borneo and the Philippines are best baked and then seasoned and go well with rice but are excellent at livening up an omelette. Do watch out for the legs which tend to get stuck between your teeth.
Fruit or veg?
The Ackee looks like a funny mushroom or a vegetable brain but it's actually a fruit from Jamaica. It tastes a bit like egg and can be used in soup but must be eaten only when ripe otherwise it can cause vomiting and even death.
Nutty bones
It’s not just dogs that enjoy bones, the reason they’re so tasty is because of the marrow inside them.
Marrow has creamy, nutty flavour and all you need to do is to roast them in the oven and scoop out the creamy loveliness from inside the bones. Marrow is so high in calories and vitamins that polar explorers and mountaineers used to use it to give them energy on expeditions.
Hot dinners
One of the world’s hottest chillies is called the Bhut Jolokia and it’s over 100 times hotter than the jalapeno and 401 times hotter than Tabasco sauce. It’s so hot that in India they smear it onto fences to keep wild elephants at bay and the army even used in smoke grenades to disperse crowds.
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