In Japan a common dish known as hachi no ko, or baby bees, is normally fried or served with rice. Bee larve are a specialty of Nagano, the capital city of Nagano Prefecture located on the Japanese island Honshu. To drive bees out of their nests (this is normally done in august) firecrackers are inserted into them. Once all of the bees are gone the larve are collected. If not freid and served over rice, these bees are canned and distributed across Japan. A similar dish with wasp larve is also common. Wasp larve are roasted and sprinkled with salt before consumption. Personally I would love to try bees, and given the fact I will be traveling to Japan over spring break I might have to opertunity. I can see why the averqage American would be turned off by the idea of eating insects, but they could end up being rather tasty. It will be difficult to get past the crunchy feeling and the constant relization of what I am eating, however if a large bowl of hachi no ko is placed in front of me, I think i'll go for it. I would love your insight on the subject, so if you have an opinion about eating bees please let me know.
This photo and other photos of hachi no ko can be found here.
-Ice Dancer
I know this is ethnocentric, but eww, I could probably never eat that (considering that I have problems with snails). I think I'll stick with sushi.
ReplyDeleteSofie B
I think I'd like to try this so that I could say that I've eaten babies before, and it certainly sounds interesting, but there is no way I think I would enjoy this.
ReplyDelete-FELIX!
I can't bee-leave what some of the other cultures eat!
ReplyDelete--
Quaver