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« Last post by IainB on December 18, 2013, 01:22 AM »
In the ampur Na-pho in Thailands North East changwat of Kong Kaen, if you are lucky you can get taken on a hunt for "epom" (pronounced "eepom"). These are a type of nocturnal cicada of 2 to 3 inches in length that have narrow windy burrows that they dig in the soft soil of the region, usually in forested areas. At nighttime, they come out of their burrows and climb the trees, and then start their "singing". The song of the epom sounds like a small, high-pitched buzz-saw and is incredibly loud/noisy - loud enough to keep you awake if it is outside your bedroom window.
The hunt is in daylight, because you know that in daytime they are hiding underground. All you have to do is spot the opening to their tunnel (which they usually conceal quite well to the untutored eye), and then dig along it with a small digging implement, until you find the epom at the end of its tunnel. It requires skill to do this, and care must be taken not to kill the epom or chop it in half with the digging implement.
Once you have caught your epom, you break its back legs and drop it, alive, into a bucket - the idea being to cripple it and thus prevent ir from jumping out of the bucket and escaping. You continue until you have about half a bucket-full of live writhing epoms. Then you take them home, and prepare them for cooking. This is done by ripping off the insect's head and pulling out its guts, which are joined to its head. The epom are then rinsed with water to get any dust off, and cooked in a frypan with one or several of garlic, salt, black pepper, chillies, vegetable oil, soy sauce.
Placed on a plate, people then help themselves to the yummy nibbles so prepared. The taste/texture is not unlike fried grasshopper or locust - sort of a nutty flavour.
I've only eaten them once, and felt sorry for their suffering. We generally don't like to empathise with the creatures we harvest or farm and kill for food, and would prefer not to think about it.
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