Silkworm Pupa in Seasoned Sauce

/34 Comments/in /by

I finally got around to making a page of silkworm food.

No, I haven’t tasted it, yet. I did try a single worm one time, out of the reeling bath; it tasted like a bug.

34 replies
  4. arianadii
    arianadii says:

    “No taste, no flavour for everyone.” There you go!

    Ahahaha! That was great fun. I’m pretty adventurous and will try almost anything but bugs. I don’t know. I suppose I have eaten my share without even realizing it. Probably everyone has. 😉

  7. shadowduchess
    shadowduchess says:

    I think I’d feel bad since they are such wonderful silk providers but, when offered a chance to try something different I never say not to trying something at least once.

  11. admin
    admin says:

    Re: Umm….

    I mainly wanted the canned ones, to be able to show people. “See, they really are eaten as food.” Although, I admit, I’d like to have some really-well-made dish with them – these look like the Canned Vienna Sausage version. I’m sure that a proper Korean/Vietnamese/Chinese cook makes something a lot more savory with fresh ingredients.

  12. admin
    admin says:

    If you’ve worked with anything that has a distinct smell, like turpentine or Comet, you get a kind of taste of it in your mouth, despite the fact that you never deliberately taste it… when you reel silk, and work with the bugs a lot, it happens then too. It tasted just like I expected from its smell, I guess. It didn’t have a distinct flavor, like bitter or sour or salty. Salty or sour would have improved it significantly.

  13. balanceinchaos
    balanceinchaos says:

    …

    … well, I do eat SNAILS under a fancy french name… and I eat SQUID… I suppose if prepared in a way that didn’t leave me heaving from the smell, I’d try it.

    My father said once that chocolate covered ants are pretty good, once you get around the idea they are ants. (My father also ate monkey brains with a tribal elder once… he admitted he never wanted to do THAT again)

  14. admin
    admin says:

    Re: …

    Plain-ol-ants are actually pretty tasty – the acid in their bodies makes them tangy kind of like lemon.

    I’m looking for a recipe that uses some FRESH silkworm pupae – the thing that I’m not so keen about with these, is that they look like they’ve been dried, *then* canned.

  17. diospyros4luna
    diospyros4luna says:

    Wow. They really need to hire one of those food photographers that substitutes non-edible items such as glue for milk so that it looks more appetizing to people in the photos. Then they could substitute the caterpillars for um… anything other than a caterpillar.

  18. diospyros4luna
    diospyros4luna says:

    Well… I guess the argument could be made for mollusks, a lot of people consider snails to be bugs… but I don’t know if I ever think of crustaceans that way.

  20. admin
    admin says:

    Yeah… a friend of mine explained that shrimp are, basically, the cockroaches of the sea. Not only do they share certain basic similarities of design (along the same ranges of size, lots of legs, feelers, etc.) but they fulfill a similar ecological niche.

    The main thing that squicks me out, is that most of the silkworm pupae that I’ve worked with, have a bad smell. Like, they weren’t handled as food, and they’ve kind of fermented. That’s the problem I have with eating these, the photo makes them look not-so-fresh.

  22. yarn_floozy
    yarn_floozy says:

    Now if anyone tries complains about the cost of spinning silk you can say “See! if worst comes to worst you reallycan eat your supplies!”

    I must admit I’m a little disapointed that you didn’t say they taste like chicken.

  25. gryphonikus
    gryphonikus says:

    Happy Birhtday

    Hello there, Michael! Long time no see (figuratively speaking). I got a pop up saying your birthday is tomorrow… so thought I would say hello and wish you the best! – Thomas (aks Blue)

  26. admin
    admin says:

    Re: Happy Birhtday

    Hey, thanks!

    I’ve been kind of out of LJ-land lately; just busy, mostly, with other stuff. Hope you’re doing well.

  30. admin
    admin says:

    Ah! Thank you very much!

    I tried putting it through BabelFish, but it was confused too. Makes more sense now that I know it’s Ukrainian!

  31. grrlanimal
    grrlanimal says:

    When I lived in Korea, they were sold as street food – they had huge steaming heaps of them in gigantic woks. I couldn’t get past the smell. I was pretty adventurous food-wise, but oy vey!

  32. danielavision
    danielavision says:

    I’ve eaten an ant, and several million blackflies while jogging or biking… but not on purpose.

    Ants… crunchy.

    Blackflies… don’t taste like anything but they don’t go down smoothly… lol

  33. laminathegreat
    laminathegreat says:

    Hey, I’ve seen you over at spinningfiber and I just had to tell you that there was a lady at my weavers guild meeting who had done some work in Laos with the silk farmers. She had eaten silk pupa. She said it tastes like silk. I don’t know if she has any recipes to share, though. 😎

  34. admin
    admin says:

    You know, she’s right… it does taste like silk, now that you mention it! Not the good part, but the sericin on the raw stuff. I sometimes nip the threads with my teeth, and that’s the same flavor.

    I would love to pick your friend’s brain about the Lao silk workers. They have a very unique way of working the silk, which creates that linen-like texture; I’ve figured out some of it, but some parts are still beyond my understanding.

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