Sports / Feature and Column
Vietnamese serve crickets crispy, peppered
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-25 20:58
HO CHI MINH CITY, Sept 25 - Would you like your crickets deep fried and
crispy? Peppered and presented in a neat circle on a bed of green leaves?
Breeders of crickets say the insects have become "finger food for beer
drinkers" in an age of increasing prosperity in Vietnam compared with the
recent past when they might have been food for the hungry or for wartime
soldiers surviving in the jungle.
Businessman Le Thanh Tung raises hundreds of thousands of the flying
insects in barrels and sells them to restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City, the
Southeast Asian country's largest urban area, or to other breeders in
neighbouring provinces.
"The taste is very particular, very special and it smells good and tastes
delicious but it is very difficult to compare cricket to other meat,"
said Tung, 28, suggesting that crickets are an acquired taste.
At his small farm and restaurant about 25 km (16 miles) west of the city
centre, a plastic-covered menu with photographs of cricket dishes offers
"young crickets deep fried", "cricket salad", "breaded cricket", "cricket
noodle" and "peppered cricket".
One customer rode 340 km on a motorbike from his home near the border
with Cambodia to buy two boxes full of twitching, chirping crickets to
breed and serve at his restaurant.
"There is a demand because people like to eat better," said the customer,
Nguyen Chinh Anh.
CRUNCHY CRICKETS
Back in the hot kitchen of the farm's brick-faced building covered by a
tin roof, Tung's sister-in-law, Huynh Thi Oanh Kieu, scoops up a colander
of crickets from a plastic basin and gently releases them into boiling
oil. They sizzle and smoke for five to 10 minutes and she pulls them out.
Crunchy crickets are ready.
Tung gives his guests six dishes of crickets of various sizes, shapes and
colours nestled on long yellow noodles, or battered, or stood on their
legs atop a dark-green salad.
Vietnamese crickets usually grow to 2.5 cm (0.9 inch) long and the
largest can grow up to 4 cm, according to Tung.
"Tasty," said driver Nguyen Trong Thanh, after gingerly picking up a deep
fried cricket with his chopsticks, dipping it in spicy fish sauce and
then into his mouth. "This is the first time I've eaten it and I'm
surprised it's that good."
Throughout the meal, crickets sing in the background. Tung says that
after six years of catching and breeding the insects, he knows their
character and moods.
"When they are angry, the singing is high-pitched and when they are
looking for a mate, it is like the sound of violins playing," he said.
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