Strange Foods by Jerry Hopkins

Author:Jerry Hopkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 962-593-154-6
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

A Laotian dish of hoi khong—apple snails-prepared simply by boiling and serving with a basic dipping sauce known as jaew som, made from pounded garlic, chilis, fish sauce, and coriander leaves. Traditional steamed sticky rice is the accompaniment.

One of the reasons for its lionization and renown was its supposed ability to enhance male virility, a reputation explained, perhaps, by the fact that it has a long, thick, muscular form that swelled to the touch. A document surviving from sixteenth-century China reported that when the slug was not available, “take the penis of a donkey and use it as a [gastronomical] substitute.”

In 1913, a woman named Elie Hunt was interviewed in her native Kwakuitl language in what is now Alaska, recounting the details of how the sea slug was caught and cooked. The hunter, always a man, waited for low tide, when he paddled his canoe over the tidal pools and captured the plentiful animals with a forked stick. “He takes the sea slug, takes his knife, and cuts off the neck. Then he squeezes out the insides, and he throws it down hard into his canoe, saying as he is throwing it down, ‘Now you will be as stiff as the wedge of your grandfather’.”

Back on shore, the slugs were steamed for two days, then boiled over an open fire. Because the water of the slugs almost always boiled over, the Kwuakuitl woman said, the man threw handfuls of dirt from the floor of the house into the water, the only way to halt the boiling over. They were then washed a final time and served as is.

Today, the sea slug-sometimes called a “sea cucumber,” again because of its shape-generally is dried and soaked for several days, then boiled in several changes of water until its original spongy texture returns. The slug is praised by nutritionists, if not for its aphrodisiac properties, for its zero cholesterol, saying, also, that pound for pound, it has four times the protein of beef.

Because it is fairly tasteless, but known for its satisfying crunch when eaten-similar to bamboo shoots or jellyfish—the Chinese usually cook it with chicken, pork, seafood, or vegetables, or add it to a soup. The Japanese sometimes eat them thinly sliced and raw in vinegar at sushi bars.

As for the garden slugs, the ones that Ms. Fisher found so off-putting, a cuisine has yet to be devised.

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